The Definition Of First Love.
What I thought was my first love was
not my first love at all. Even at the time,
some hidden away secret silent part of me
was certain that this was not my first love,
not because I had loved before, but because
this could not truly be considered love.
Unless love consisted of fear and anxiety,
impatience and mean words, spite and degradation.
Unless love held you captive and silent and resentful.
Unless love made you hate yourself.
Then, perhaps, this was love?
But somewhere, deep inside, a serious-voiced girl
told me, this is not love. This is making due.
This is being hopeful. This is making concessions
and one-sided contracts and deals that if I would
only be good, be sexier, be thinner, be funnier,
be quieter, be happier, this would all be better.
Then he would love me.
That is not love. It is a poor excuse for love...at best.
The time span in between that first mistaken, heartfelt
yet clumsy stab at love held many more attempts. Drunken
shots in the dark. Obsessions. Passing fancys and
possibilities. Killing time. And yet, none of them, love.
Being rendered powerless for so long caused me to beleive
that in order to not be controlled meant that I had to
become the controller. From now on, I would call all
shots. I would pull all punches. I would take all they
would give and give as little as I possibly could, in return.
It worked, but none of that could be considered "love".
When love found me, I was a bit of a mess. Drinking too
much, dating too often, too busy trying to win the game
to care what the consequences might be. Love challenged
my thinking without controlling it. Love cleaned me up
and beleived in me. Love listened.
As it turned out, my first real love played no games.
That was established the first night we met. At the bar,
I thought as usual, that I held all the cards and he would
follow my lead. I took him (as I did all others) to the
Parkade, where I would walk drunkenly around the
outside edge, balancing precariously, while the others
begged me to come down. But not him. Instead,
he picked me up and held me over the edge until
I was the one wanted to be on safe ground.
And yet, the true test still waited. The church by
my apartment was a magnet for me in its vast
beauty. There was staging built for renovations
that whole summer. I desperately wanted to
climb that staging but no boy was willing. Except
this one. Drunkenly, we climbed the entire staging
and at the top, he kissed me.
And that was where my first true love began,
almost twelve years ago now. And that, for me,
is my first real love.
more sunday scribbling here!
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