First Love

I spent my childhood being a part of the privileged. Going on road trips every other weekend, staying out late nights, having cocktails, partying and sleeping only when the sun was about to rise. All this before I even hit puberty.

But my most significant memory from those years is perhaps my first love. Would it be too naive to call it love? He is older by a month. And not to be conceited, but I was pretty adorable back then. (That’s how I grew up to become less than pretty. The cute baby-ugly adult, ugly baby-gorgeous adult theory).

Anyway, he’d professed his love for me when we were 6. Until we were 10, we would still hang out together a lot. Even though he was deliberately annoying, so much that I wanted to smack him. Then high school came along and I drifted away from that life and into my own. But one night, when we were about 16, lounging about in his family’s bar, chatting on the IRC from two stations beside each other, he typed: “Hey, listen to this song.”

And this song from Savage Garden came on.

That was the most romantic moment of my life, even though he might not have meant it that way.

I saw him again today. I’ve known him for 23 years, but I also don’t know him at all. Yet, everytime I think about him, a smile lights up my face and my heart flutters like it is still 16. Thank you for the memories 🙂