The First
The first time I met you, I thought you were the best I could ever hope for. As time went on, I realized you were actually the best that I could ever hope for at that time. Our lives in constant motion, growing and changing from every experience feeling that we would be would be together forever. The storybook ending was what I was hoping for, growing old together surrounded by children and grandchildren. After the fact I started to realize that was not what was meant for us. All the obvious signs were there in front of me, but I blissfully ignored them until it was far too late and the damage was irreparable. Being in love with the idea of love is a hard thing to rationalize.
The first kiss we ever had, we were both so nervous. Am I doing this right? All the romantic black and white films that I had watched with my parents had prepared me; I gave it my best shot. Your lips were soft and when we pulled away from each other you blushed and I blushed. The overflowing energy and excitement welling up inside me was difficult to contain as you closed the car door. “I can’t wait to do that again”. Soon emotions would overtake all rational thought and we would unwittingly hurt each other just to escape this inner turmoil of not being ready for such a passionate unbridled immature love. We burned so hot and so fast, but died out just as easily. Like lighting a match.
The first time we had dinner with your parents, I remember your father asking me what travelling I had done or wanted to do. He said to me that he found no greater joy than being alone in the world on his bike travelling through foreign lands. Something in the way he spoke I admired and was inspired so much by. No greater joy save for his wife and family. You and your mother were fussy over him. Trying making sure he took his medications on time and that dinner was prepared exactly the way he wanted it to be. After all, he was the guest of honor. Not me. He would be leaving his family behind, for one last great adventure. Into a land nobody else could follow him into. Even though our love died with him, I promised him I would visit Paris on my own. A promise I still intend to keep.
The first dance we ever danced was hot and heavy. Our intoxicated bodies, writhing and grinding on the dance floor. Our breathing as one, your hands in the air and mine running over your body like rivers running down hills and valleys from a melting glacier. Our hips moving in unison. That would be a night where our expectations killed our reality. The first time alcohol interfered with sexual pleasure and the first time I woke up willingly before the sun rose to escape my shame. All Hallows eve brings out the demons in us all, and we were both transformed once again back into our shy and bashful selves upon the sun’s awakening. As the light banished the shadows, so too did it purge my embarrassment.
The first date we went on, I was honestly expecting to be different. And how different it was. How can two people from such different walks of life find friendship, love and understanding in such chaos as a global pandemic? The innocence within me was reawakened by you. You, so proud and yet serenely delicate of nature, yet guarded and emotionally distant. Walking around and viewing these crafts of many people’s souls. A gallery of wonder where our minds mingled cautiously at first and then freely by the end. Your small hand in mine. I have never felt this kind of joy with anyone, so powerful and so overwhelming that it even to this day brings tears to my eyes. And what eyes they were. Two brown orbs with kindness, curiosity and a hint of mischievousness. As if they reflected my own Soul. I was terrified of these feelings because of the scars my heart had just formed, and I regret that because I would hate to lose someone who makes me feel like I am whole again.
