First Loves

We met my son’s new girl friend this past weekend and I really like the way my son acts around her.  He’s obviously in love and acts differently towards this girl than he has around any of the others we have seen.  Observing my son in the throes of his first real love, I reflected on my own experience.  I’ve been fortunate enough to experience two great loves in my life.  I completely screwed up the first, my college sweetheart and first fiancé, and have been married to the second for nearly thirty years.  There is an almost breathtaking intensity to that first love.  I remember being almost incapable to thinking of anything else when I first fell in love.  This was not especially great timing since I was in college at the time and supposedly focusing a little bit of attention towards my studies (that for another post).  That intensity scared both of us and caused her to hesitate and declare after a few months that she needed to see someone else, to confirm her feelings for me (never understood that logic).  I can still clearly remember the moment she told me this and the attendant, rending heartbreak.  I never recovered from that and unfairly punished her for the duration of our time together because of it.  She eventually committed to our relationship, but I treated her poorly, breaking up several times, as we navigated through college life, always throwing the other guy in her face.  After graduation we became engaged shortly before I headed out for my first overseas assignment.  Several months before the wedding was scheduled I broke it off because of a short fling with a bizarre English girl.  Looking back I know this was the right decision as I was not prepared for marriage but first loves are tough to let go of.  The following Christmas I was back in the States and actually went to her apartment but never made it out of my car in the parking lot and left after thirty minutes.  I rationalized that it would be manifestly unfair to attempt reconciliation after my behavior.  I was also afraid she would shoot me in the face when she opened the door.  I still thought about her daily, even after meeting the great love of my life – my wife.  It was something that dogged me for years as I was unable to emotionally let her go.  I don’t know why but in 1997, eighteen years after the breakup, I was driving in an Army jeep through the back woods of Minnesota and decided it was time to let her go and it happened.  I felt free for the first time in almost two decades.  It’s strange that these long harbored feelings never affected the intense love I had towards my wife but it was still liberating.  As stated above, first loves are tough to let go of.  I’m excited for my son – I’m sure he’ll do a better job than I did with it.