"Come Back to Your First Love..."

These are the words to the refrain of the Kirk Franklin song, "First Love", which I had on repeat the summer following my breakup with my first love. The song was talking about God, because he's the first one to love you, but it felt like it was speaking directly to me and my situation and I, of course, ended up coming back to my first love when the semester started in September of that year. 

Though the relationship ended for good the day after Thanksgiving of the same year, I still think about him. Especially during the holidays. I spent two great Thanksgivings with he and his family (he's the only boyfriend I ever spent the holidays with), our birthdays are one day apart (I'm 12/15 and he's 12/16), and starting immediately after our breakup, he never fails to wish me a happy birthday, and a merry Christmas. We don't speak on AIM anymore (we met on BlackPlanet.com and spoke on AIM for a while before meeting, so it seems dangerous to start up again on AIM), we don't call, we rarely email (beyond the occasional check-ins about life, jobs, etc.), but we NEVER forget birthdays or Christmas. It's our thing.

And this year, more than ever, I've been thinking of him. Why? Because although he's my first love, he also happens to be my ONLY love to date. Man, it took me months to want until I could date again (8 months, to be precise), and a little more before I didn't get emotional remembering our times together. And I know he felt the same way. Maybe he didn't take as long to seek the refuge in another woman, but his check-ins, I realized, always coincided with right after he'd broken up with someone, and I was the same way. Always circling back to that one time I found someone who truly loved me and wondering if it didn't make more sense to go back than to keep hitting a brick wall with the guys I'm meeting now.

When I was crying my eyes out over our breakup (and getting into running, and cutting off all my hair, and partying and drinking more than ever before), everyone said, "Don't worry. He's just your first love. You'll have many more. Everyone thinks their first love is it, and it rarely ever is." I'm 26. He and I started talking when I had just turned 20. We discussed marriage. We discussed kids. We wanted it to work forever. And four years after our breakup, no one has even come close to comparing. What if that WAS it?