Sunday Scribblings - First Love

When Laini told me about this week's post I sat and thought about it for awhile and then I did something I very rarely do. I Googled someone. A few someones actually. I started thinking about my first crushes and wondering where they are now. I'm sad to admit that I can't remember all of them. I had a very deep crush on a boy named Troy when I was still in Elementary School. I was dancing with him at the Valentines Day sock hop when Danny P. came over and held a heart above our heads and told us to kiss. We did - quickly. It was my fist kiss. But now I know I didn't love him. (And I couldn't find him on Google.)

My other crush in the eighth grade was alternatively two guys named Derrick and Darryl. (HA ha HA ha - funny how alike their names sound now!) Derrick had spikey hair and high-top sneakers and he brought his ghetto-blaster to school every day. We would all hang out in the breezeway and listen to Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet album at lunch. Ah, good times! He and I sat beside each other in class and I had a real crush on him but I was really smart and he teased me all of the time about it, so I was too scared to admit I had a crush on him. I found someone with his name on Google who is now a Geography Prof. at a university. That would be ironic if that was him, but the picture didn't look anything like the guy I knew. I also know now that I didn't love him either.

When I started high school I had a mad crush on a guy named Ted. He and I worked together. Every year we would flirt for months, go on a date or two in the spring, and make out a little. Then I would go to camp for the summer and not see him for months and it would take us nearly a year to get back to 'seeing each other' again and the process would start again. Then he hit 17, started playing rugby, became a jerk and blew me off. I was hung up on him for years. I couldn't find him on Google either. What I felt for him wasn't love - it was teen angst!

Then there was Andrew - I will not go into that tale of woe and embarrassment. He had another girlfriend at the same time, and the result was a loss of three years of my romantic life, a lost 'best' friend, and a trip to the UK. I know that despite me thinking that I loved him, that what I felt was friendship, fear, and attraction. Then I also think I was scared that I would never find anyone else. That's not love. (And nope - no Google entries!)

So what is love then? Well, I've thanked Andrew many times in the past few years (in my head) because if it wasn't for our dysfunctional relationship I may never have come to the UK to find it. I truly think that in coming here I have finally experienced my first love. I can't describe what love is or how love feels, or how you know when you are really in it. I just know that for the first time, I have felt it. My Mom and my Aunt Kathy once said to me that, "you just know," when you are with the right person. At first with Mark my knowing was clouded with geography and other people's opinions, with 'shoulds' and other things, but I always knew that he was special. I always knew that I needed to give it a try. And now I "just know" that I am finally with my Love. And since this is my first time feeling this way, I guess he really is my first love.

(And yes, I Googled him, and yes, he's there!! Top of the list!) xo

P.S. I'm still in email purgatory - hoping to be back on at the beginning of the week! Sorry my posts have been few and far between. I have lots of news - I'll try to write more on Monday! XOXO)