I met my first love while being a delinquent...(GBE 5)

I met my first love while skipping class.  I was a sophomore in high school and he was a freshman.  I skipped chorus class because there was a concert I couldn’t attend, so I didn’t think it was important to practice.  For the record, yes, I did get caught after the third time skipping.  Yes, I did have to serve some detention time.  They were the only detentions I have ever received in my life!

I find it amusing now that when we met, I was just a bit taller than Dan.  And, I am not terribly tall – a little under 5’6”.  He was a friend of a friend and he just made me laugh.  We became friends and as time went on, our circle of friends ended up merging together.  When I met Dan, I was dating a boy in my class.  I didn’t think of him in any romantic way.  He was a great guy to have fun with. 

During the summer between my sophomore and junior year, we did not keep in touch.  We went to a private high school.  I lived almost an hour away and it was difficult to keep in touch with friends.  My parents were not too keen on me running up our long distance phone bill and no one had even heard of email or the internet yet.  I also didn’t drive until I was out of high school. 

Imagine my surprise when this tall boy walked up to me to say hello on the first day of school in the fall of 1995.  I had to look UP at him.  He ended up growing to be 6’4.” Quite different from that freshman boy I first met a little less than a year prior.

I remember we ended up having geometry together.  We used to send notes back and forth.  He would sit behind me and kick my chair.  We would meet and walk to class together. 

On the mornings my Dad got me to school early, I loved just having that extra time with him.

I realized I was falling for him, but I didn’t know what to do about it.  He fell for me long before I fell for him.  I did not want to mess up our friendship.  I was afraid.  I knew there was something different about him, compared to the other boys I had gone on dates with.  He patiently waited for me through all of my crushes.   

I remember the first time I heard hurt in his voice.  I had agreed to go to my junior prom with a boy named Robert.  Dan was not a junior, couldn’t buy tickets.  He couldn’t ask me to go.  I was talking on the phone one night before the prom and he quietly said “I would have loved to take you to your prom.”  It was the first time he spoke to me like that – besides with his eyes.  I felt the hurt in his voice.  I thought of him while I was at the prom.  I wondered if I would have had a better time with him.  My date was wonderful – a true gentleman.  However, he just was not Dan.

During the summer between my junior year and senior year, most of my friends, including Dan, got their licenses.  Suddenly, I was able to see my friends and have more of social life.  I remember on a couple of occasions, Dan came really close to asking me out.  He backed off.  He later told me it was because of the look in my eyes.  When he finally got the courage to try, I shot him down. 

Four days later, I went shopping with my friends.  I ended up talking about the whole situation.  I realized that I just did not want to hurt him.  Saying no seemed to be able to hurt him less.  I didn’t fundamentally care whether I hurt some of the other boys I dated.  But Dan was different.  I cared about hurting him – and I knew one day that I would.  My friends told me I was stupid.  So, on the way back from shopping, my friends took a detour – right to his house.  They said “If you don’t tell him now, you never will.  We know you.”  I asked Dan if we could “try.” I told him how I felt about him, and that I was afraid of hurting him. 

We were very awkward with each other for a week.  I remember that following Friday was a chilly afternoon.  I was freezing as I stood outside with my friends talking.  I was waiting for the bus to go to Lazarus House for the weekend.  Lazarus House was a homeless shelter in Lawrence, Mass.  Many seniors did community service there.  Dan gave me his jacket and told me to keep it for the weekend.  I remember just feeling like he was there.  Staying at Lazarus House was my first experience with sleeping in a homeless shelter with bullet holes through the glass windows.  His jacket was like my teddy bear. 

On our first date, Dan asked me whether I would prefer Chinese or Wendy’s.  He knew I had a thing for Wendy’s Chili.  I remember thinking about the fact that he had a job at a nursing home – so I would not make him spring for Chinese.  We had Wendy’s and we went to the movies.  We saw the movie “That Thing You Do” with Liv Tyler and Tom Hanks. 

We went on several more dates.  Each time we got more comfortable with our new identity as a “couple.”  I still blushed when I saw him in the mornings.  It still startled me when he reached for my hand. 

We went out the Friday night before I took my SAT’s.  We had a great time.  We got in the car and I thought he was going to drive me home.  Instead, he drove up to this place called Garrison Hill.  It was a notorious parking spot in Dover NH.  I had had an ex-boyfriend try to take me up there and let’s just say it did not turn out too well for him.  I remember feeling my heart start to pound as he took the turn and I lost my ability to speak for a moment.  I remember thinking, “I didn’t think he was like this.  What am I going to do?”  I found my voice and I said “I am not that comfortable with going up here.” 

He looked at me and asked me “Do you trust me?”  I looked back at him.  I did not see anything in his eyes that would lead me to believe I couldn’t.  I said “Yes.” 

We got up to the top of the hill and we could see the lights of the small city.  It was beautiful.  It was a bright night – with tons of stars shining.  Dan came around my side of the car and opened my door.  Then he opened the back seat and pulled out a CD player he had stored under the seat in the back.  He hit play, and the night air was filled with the strains of Kenny G.  He asked me to dance under the stars.  It was there that we had our first kiss.  It was his first kiss ever, and it was the first kiss that had ever mattered to me. 

Let’s just say I aced my SAT’s because I was walking on clouds the next day.

Dan and I dated for almost six years.  We did get engaged, but it wasn’t right.  We did not get engaged for the right reasons.  I was also beginning to get sick.  I knew when I was in high school that there was something “different” about me.  No one had a name for it.  It was not until almost ten years out of high school that I was diagnosed with a lower form of Bipolar Disorder. 

Before we broke up, we had our daughter, Olivia.  We have had some very tough times co-parenting, but we seem to be getting better lately.  We had a great many years with toxic anger flowing between us.  We have had some great conversations in the past six months.  We have begun working together much more.  I get glimpses of the boy I fell in love with in those conversations.  I sometimes wonder why our lives had to turn out this way.   But I do trust God and what His plan is for me. 

The day Dan got married, I cried for a good portion of the day.  I don’t know why – I didn’t necessarily want him back.  He was giving his heart to someone else – and our daughter was there to watch him do it.  He was giving her the life he had promised me.  The life I have still yet to find with someone else. 

The truth is that my first love is never far from my heart.  I see so much of him in Olivia – more every day.  People always tell me that my daughter is a “Mini-Michelle” but those people don’t know Dan the way I did.  They don’t know his silences or his stubbornness or the way he thinks about things.  Olivia has so many of his traits in her.  Olivia is going to be very tall – she has her father’s legs and arms.  She will tower over me as an adult.  As she gets older, I see more of a mix of our facial expressions.  She is beginning to come into her own so to speak.  She is not just a “Mini Michelle” anymore.  She is both the best and the worst of both of her parents – and she is all the more beautiful for it. 

I make sure to tell Olivia about things her father and I did as we grew up.  She has what is called “The Daddy Book.”  After he left, I wanted to destroy everything he gave me. I wanted to burn all the pictures and mementoes in the fire pit in my yard.  Instead, I calmed down and made her a scrapbook of all the wonderful memories I have of her father.  We look at it once in a while.  She sleeps with some of the stuffed animals her father had given me.  She showed one to him the other day when he came to pick her up and asked if he remembered giving it to me.  Her face lit up with a smile when he told her yes. 

I do not know what he tells Liv about me at his house.  I would imagine he does not say much because of his wife.  She is very territorial – even with what clothes of Liv’s belong at “her” house.  At my house, it is important for me to make sure Liv understands that at one time I truly loved her father with as much love as I was capable of at the time and he loved me.  We were still kids when we loved each other though.    

Sometimes, I look at “The Daddy Book” without Liv.  I remember how I felt about Dan.  And I think to myself that I am healthier now.  I am more able to truly love someone and accept their love in return.  I imagine that Dan has found what he needs and what I could never have given him at that time in our lives.  I have grown to be happy for him.  Despite her control issues, his wife loves my daughter like she is her own.  I hold onto that thought when I want to throttle her. 

I don’t know what God has in store for me.  I don’t know if I am meant to be alone for the rest of my life or if there is someone out there who is my other half.  I will be fine with whatever plan God has for me.  I have to trust that His plan is so much better than mine could ever be.  His purpose regarding the people who He brings in and out of my life is so much richer than taking my romantic destiny in my own hands at this time and finding someone who is wrong for me. 

I see the boy who was my first love in the one I love the deepest of all – my daughter.  Regardless of the troubles he and I have faced – I will always be eternally grateful for our time together and the miracle of our daughter.