Monday, 5 September 2011

A Blast from the Past

Today was an exciting day for me... exciting but relaxed. Today I met up with my first ever boyfriend in the flesh for the first time in thirteen and a half years.

We were each others' "firsts" in our high school years. We were only together for three months, but they were the most wonderful three months of my teenage years. He was almost two years older than me, and we 'broke up' because I was starting a new school that added 2 hours of travel each day to my day, and he lived ten kilometres from my home in the opposite direction from school, and he just felt that if we couldn't see each other, then what is the point of continuing, but at the same time, he declared his love to me saying that one day, we may be again.

So as any love-struck teenage girl would do, I held onto that thought that one day it may happen again. And there were chances. I would generally call him up every six or so months to see how he was going, but he had another girlfriend, who he ended up marrying. When I was in my final year of school, he unexpectedly called me up, and we decided to catch up over lunch. I hoped that this was our chance to renew things, but his mind was very scattered and he couldn't look at me, so lunch was disappointing and he didn't return my calls after it. So I continued life, hoping in the back of my mind, that one day, it still may happen.

At what would have been ten years after we were together, I wrote him a tear-jerking letter asking him why he came back into my life for a fleeting moment only to leave just as quickly. It was possibly ten pages of thoughts, feelings, hopes (because I'm an avid letter writer!) and dreams of our time together and how he dearly had a place close to my heart. I wrote the letter and sealed it, but never sent it.... not until about three months later, having no idea what I actually wrote.

Two weeks after I posted the letter to his Dad's house (as that was the only address I had), I received a phone call at work. It was him. He sounded different... almost gay. I was excited because I had a chance to get to know him again, but concerned at the same time about his sexual orientation. We decided to meet up ten days later at a cafe halfway between our offices.

We met up at Giorgios in Armadale, he in his physiotherapist whites, me in my casual office attire and we sat down for a coffee. We talked about the unresolved issues we had between us, but he wasn't as open as I had hoped. He kept saying 'he'd forgotten.' But then he talked about all his beer drinking partying that he did ten years prior, and that he was still doing it... But he was also newly-married to the girlfriend he had after me. I was devastated, but realised that we were in two different places and wanting two different things, so it was OK for me to move on now.

So I did, and we never spoke again... not until I found him on the internet about eighteen months ago living in London. He had divorced his teenage sweetheart (I was his childhood sweetheart!), but now had a serious girlfriend with whom he was happy. He revealed to me in our first series of emails that he often thought about me, and wonders what would have happened if we continued. He told me he kept my letters in a box in his cupboard until one day someone robbed his house and took them, unknowing that it was nothing important to anyone else except him. He remembered my birthday without being prompted. His kindness was shining and he was showing that I actually did have a special place in his heart.

So today, we met up at Brown Cow in Hampton Street, I had a wine, he had a beer. We sat chatting for almost two hours about how his trip back home has been like, his travels, my travels, kids, family, life in general. It didn't seem like we were stuck for anything to say, and it was nice. The sun was out, we had a few smiles and a few laughs. He is still quite cute for someone who's almost forty, and taller than I remembered, and quite lean. He wore a shirt that revealed some of his salt-n-peppering chest hair, and his stubble showed flecks of grey, but his curly, slightly receding hairline didn't (and it didn't looked dyed either). His eyes were still as mesmerising, and he still had the sweetest smile, and I can see that we have a lot of things in common now - travel, living our own lives not that what our family expects, etc. but we are in different hemispheres all the same. I'm glad we still have our friendship and that will always continue.

So we left each other with a hug and a peck on the cheek, like friends do. He paid for the drinks, which was sweet and gentlemanly of him, and he sent me a text about an hour ago saying that it was great to catch up, apologised that it wasn't longer, and he hopes to see me in London one day soon.

So that's my love story that's blossomed back into my life in the form of friendship, someone who will always have a close place in my heart, someone I've never had any animosity with and someone I will have a connection with possibly for the rest of my life.

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