All In The Past...

I have had three great romances in my life. The first was with a young fellow who I have only recently reconnected with after many years. I was 14 years old when I first met him and really was far younger than that in my emotional journey.  I look back on that great romance as many do on their first romance. I look back on it with kindness and generosity. I look back on it as my walk into adulthood.

MG on the right with his great friend KG and me looking through the window at them in the background.

 They say that you never forget your first great love and for me that is true... actually I have never forgotten any of my great loves and hopefully never will. It is funny how in hind sight I can safely say that each great romance in my life has walked me forward by leaps and bounds in terms of personal growth. For me the time of MG was a time of such innocence.... such sweet innocence. He was quite a bit older than I but he never took advantage of my innocence. I know this will shock you, but I was, at 14 years of age, going out with him who was.... well, you see, he was 18.... a virtual adult, while I was just a child. I grin as I say that because for years Sir Arsewipe was horrified that my mother and father would let a mere slip of a girl go out with a young man who was so much older. I also remember at one time that Sir Arsewipe was jealous of my first great love. He felt that he would have liked to have known me before... before I became the jaded and worldly adult of later years. (snork)

I think back on that now as pure nonsense and I see it for the selfishness that it really was. As our daughters got older and came closer and closer to dating age he would say to them, "well, if you bring home boys I am going to make them dig holes in the back yard so that they can wear themselves out before they go out with my girls. And you can forget going out with someone who is three or four years older than you, like your mother did... it's not going to happen... I know what teenage boys want." (Apparently its the same thing that men who are suffering a mid-life crisis want.)

My relationship with MG lasted for 11 months and was exactly what a first romance should be. He wasn't my first kiss but he was the first kiss that was meaningful. He was sweet and kind and never twisted me up inside and when we finally broke up, it was because he was honest enough to tell me that he had found someone else. I was devastated... for all of a week or two. In those days and for a 14 year old that was a terribly long time. I dated him for almost a year... a year that was so much more than my first great romance. It was the year during which I was going through all the changes that had to do with my back. I was going through surgery and steel rods and spinal fusions and all that went with the loss of my childhood. I look at it now as one of the most poignant times of my life... I look back on it now and see that while I was going through the horror of being stretched and and opened up and hammered and chipped... I had this one sweet thing that blossomed in a pit of stone. And when I came out of that pit I left that blossom behind and learned to turn the pit into a whole valley of blossoms.

There's a funny thing about that year though... He and I shared a long distance relationship for most of that year, he in one town and me in another... but he would show up unexpectedly and stay with us because the work he did for his dad took him to my home town regularly. It was an odd thing though because when I was going out with him I had no idea how life's twists and turns would bring us together later on. After our relationship ended, my father was transferred to his community and I ended up living two doors away from where he grew up. By that time he had met and married his wife and they were well on their way to having a family of their own... we became friends. Later I met my second great romance and he knew MG as well and I was able to continue our friendship. It was only after I went away from home and moved to St. John's where I went to University that I lost contact with MG.

As I have said it is only recently that I have reconnected with him and it is almost as if it was meant to be... I was on Facebook looking for another friend... a girlfriend from my school years... when I came across MG and the business that he runs now. I contacted him and we have had several funny, odd, and wonderful chats. He has been reading here a little... (Hi there if you read this.) I'm sure you are wondering why I think it was meant to be that I reconnect with him... well it is because at the time I was spending a good portion of each day going through all of our/my personal stuff and boxing and separating my stuff from Sir Arsewipe's and I came across a box of MG... there was a photo album that dates back to the weekend I met him, and a stack of photos from the time we were dating, and a diary in which I chronicled our great romance.... and I'm sure he will be shocked to know that there was a stack of love letters tied with a blue satin ribbon that he wrote to me as we went through our relationship. They smell of old paper and time... but they are filled with the thoughts and doings of a young man who is just starting down the road of adulthood. And they are full of hopes and dreams.. I am glad to have shared that year with him.

Let me tell you that reading the sentimentalities of a fourteen year old are so... funny... and I guess a little poignant. How innocent I was... we were. How good the world was to have everything before me.... us. And I will tell you this... having gone through all of those albums and letters has taught me something... that life goes on and things happen for a reason... and I will carry that with me into this new future that I am facing...

To MG I thank you... I'm glad you were a part of my growing up. And I thank you for your kindness now too... : )