And they called it puppy love--do you remember your first love?

[Jilly_in_VA]

11. I met mine

at a church youth event when I was 15 and he was almost 17. He was from a little town 35 miles away so it was "long distance" after that weekend, but the intensity of that weekend was amazing. The next year at the same event things did not go well, but later we patched it up. The next year he enlisted in the army and I was devastated, but we started writing lots of letters. Lots of them. He came home on leave when I was a freshman in college and we almost eloped but didn't. Long story. When his deployment to Germany was extended by a year it was devastating again. Then he was discharged finally, but before I could get home to see him (I was still away at school), he and his entire family picked up stakes and moved to California. Life intervened but he kept writing me and begging me to come out there. Finally, the summer I was 21, I took what little money I had and bought a bus ticket to LA. I spent 6 weeks there and we actually got engaged; he put a down payment on a ring. But I ran out of money and had to return to Wisconsin, and when I got back my head was clear....I realized we were just too different to make it, and I wasn't ready to settle down, so I wrote him and broke the engagement. But wait....two years later, when I was engaged to my (unlamented) first husband, I came home to my apartment to find a series of repeated messages on the communal phone from him. At least I assumed they were from him, as they were from an operator in LA. But I never could reach him. Sometimes I wonder if things might have been different; we both went on to marry other people that year, and both marriages ended very badly.

Postscript--we are still friends. Many years later he tracked me down. He was in the area and came to see me. My daughter, then 8, fell in love with him. We were both married to others by then. Now we are old and still remember each other's birthdays. I know it wouldn't have worked out. He plays golf and our politics are different. But I still care for him. Always will.