This weekend I found
out that my first love, my high school sweetheart, the best best friend I ever
had, got engaged. We haven't spoken in
many years. His girlfriend who he dated
after our romantic relationship end, now fiancé, gave him an ultimatum of our
friendship or their relationship. That
ultimatum came after a difficult point in their relationship that challenged
their trust and ultimately leading to me
help him get her belongs out of their shared home. In spite of it all, he chose their
relationship. To this day I don't understand but it's also not my business to
understand.
He saved my life,
twice, for reasons and circumstances I haven't gone into in this space but
perhaps will one day. I still have a
place in my heart that is hurt by his choice to let our friendship go so my
first reaction to his engagement was shock and disbelief.
Mostly disbelief that he was going to get married before I was. In all likely circumstances it was a blow to
the ego than anything else. So my second
reaction was to go to Trader Joe's and pick up a carton of my new favorite
treat - strawberry coconut milk ice cream.
Because if I was going to eat my feelings, I wanted to at least not
punish my guts in the process.
Within about an hour
of finding this out, I'd curled up on the couch, queued up a Downton episode
and savored not only the bowl of "ice cream", but the amazing life
that surrounded me. What I thought at the
moment I found out about his engagement was the idea of that could have been
me, that memory that he's the only one that ever got inside my heart of
hearts - knew my demons and downfalls,
and loved me all the same. It briefly
ignited that fear that I'd never find someone who I'd be willing to let that
deep inside and who could handle all of whatever this hot mess is. But then I was reminded that what we had is
as much history for the history books as the people we were when we were
together. Once I
was able to extinguish that fear I found that space to be happy for him. So very happy for him.
So what's my point?
I guess it's let history remain history, keep the faith a finding the person who
can get into the heart of hearts, and when in need of comfort make sure you keep
an extra carton of your favorite frozen treat in the freezer. Just in cases.
A couple great high school memories to accompany this post:
Our first homecoming dance, we weren't dating yet but I remember this moment vividly as I was shaking try to put a corsage on him. I totally botched it. Mortified. But that night was amazing. I never felt more beautiful. To this day I still have that dress.
That's me in leather pants and a sequin tube top for a Las Vegas themed Tolo dance. We were impossibly young.
Our last dance senior year. We thought we had it all figured out.
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