A former boyfriend of mine celebrated his birthday yesterday. It’s one of those dates etched into my mental Rolodex, and I wonder how long it will stay. When I’m eighty, will October 1st still result in the flash of my first love’s face? All sideburns and jnco jeans, curls and a killer smile. Even though it’s been over a decade since his name has evoked any emotion other than nostalgia, our early twenties belong to one another. He was the first person to really see me, and I spent almost every day that we were together wondering how he’d been missed.
It wasn’t the kind of love that I have with my husband—passionate as it is playful, as stimulating as it is sustaining. No, it was, I’m trying to think of a metaphor that captures the euphoria and the rush, the highs and lows, and in my head, I keep hearing the lyrics, “Your love is my drug.”(Is that song supposed to me romantic?) As informed as the innocent ever are, we wrapped ourselves in a quilt of commitment and compulsion, doomed in our sanguine stupor, and stared at the stars. Our whispered visions of forever floated on the wind like the bare bones skeleton of a dandelion. And when it was over, I tried to convince myself that it wasn’t really love; it made it easier to accept. But it was love, at least, the way a twenty-year-old me knew how to love.
So, if you are reading this, happy belated birthday. And I thank-you for the many lessons our time together taught me. Including, the use of “Xi” when I play scrabble. I hope your life is filled with the joy that you deserve.
It wasn’t the kind of love that I have with my husband—passionate as it is playful, as stimulating as it is sustaining. No, it was, I’m trying to think of a metaphor that captures the euphoria and the rush, the highs and lows, and in my head, I keep hearing the lyrics, “Your love is my drug.”(Is that song supposed to me romantic?) As informed as the innocent ever are, we wrapped ourselves in a quilt of commitment and compulsion, doomed in our sanguine stupor, and stared at the stars. Our whispered visions of forever floated on the wind like the bare bones skeleton of a dandelion. And when it was over, I tried to convince myself that it wasn’t really love; it made it easier to accept. But it was love, at least, the way a twenty-year-old me knew how to love.
So, if you are reading this, happy belated birthday. And I thank-you for the many lessons our time together taught me. Including, the use of “Xi” when I play scrabble. I hope your life is filled with the joy that you deserve.