I was awfully young the time I laid eyes on what would be the first love of my fledgling life. She was older and straight, untouchable in my mind, but that did not mean I didn’t want her. So I settled on the outskirts of her life and watched. I never thought she’d notice. I was trying to find my way in school and was finding Cornell to be well over my head. I was struggling and distracted. I only wanted her. I really had no idea what to do with myself. In the perfect turn of events she noticed me. There was that spark. No denying the connection there. When asked tonight if I remembered that night, I could perfectly visualize the car, the dashboard light and the unspoken lust that hung in the air. I knew I could not go to her, that would have freaked her out and so I waited in the dim light listening to the music and wishing she’d make up her mind. It took a very long time. Very very long time but in that moment when I felt her move I knew she would come to me. It was a strange mixture of passion and shy tentativeness. In those initial minutes we took in each other’s features by touch. Our lips and hands insatiable. It was heart racing and tingling lust finally unleashed after being held in check too long. We could not get enough of each other. When apart my body would tingle at attention if I just happened to picture her in my mind’s eye. I could feel her when she was not even present. All I wanted was to be with her. I would do anything to be there learning the curves of her body. Her taste , her smell so new and novel. I could not get enough. We spent any free moment together. I let her find her way to me. I worried I would scare her off, though I knew in my mind she couldn’t get enough. In my earlier years (as my regular reader’s know) sex was not a consensual process. There was nothing wonderful about it. It was not something to look forward to, or dream about. She gave me the ability to dream about it, to wish for more. That was a gift. Regardless of how our relationship ended I am forever grateful for that gift. Sex didn’t equal harm. It was an act I had control over. I could stretch boundaries and find myself. I could do that. I did not expect to hear from my ex today. I sure did not think I’d be visualizing my first night with her. It is okay. My life is a long way from there. I can think about the past and realize how it shaped my future. We learned a lot from each other, both good and bad. I wouldn’t change a minute of it looking back. I’m sure Virgil probably thinks otherwise as she had to watch the aftermath and fought hard to get me to walk away from that relationship. Ah, to be young and brave. Stupid brave. You only get that opportunity once. It is a christening of sorts as we offer ourselves up to love that very first time, a sacrificial lamb on the altar of life. It never works, never lasts, but you never forget it.

Here we are 20 years later and I can still feel that passion. I can still sense the deep love I had for her. That never goes away. It has faded with the passage of time. I do not dream for her to come back into my life. I know that could only end in heartache and pain. But I can still feel her there with me. There is lust driven love and there is the steadfast solid sort I have now. Sure I miss that wildness and the boundless passion. Who doesn’t? I’m human. I am a realist these days. Though I do not remember accurately the pain she caused me I know enough to not repeat that. I can leave our relationship in the past as just a lingering reminder of what young love felt like and how it rolls in like a freight train and knocks you to your knees. What it feels like to never be able to get enough. Yesterday was just an out of the blue contact that stirred those long-buried memories of our life together. If you could call it that. If only I knew back then how it all would end I doubt I would have handed my heart to her. I didn’t know enough to protect myself. Ah, it is done now and in the past. I lived and learned. that is all any of us can do.