“I like you a lot,” one of the regular customers at the health food store where I worked in high school said to me one day. I didn’t know quite what to say. Richard had graduated from an Ivy League school and was working in my hometown. He seemed much too old at the time – 5 years older than I. I really can’t recall how it was that we starting dating. Over the next four years we spent a lot of time together. We broke up after he moved away. He came by my parents’ house several years later to hear from my Sister that I was married and having a baby. I only appreciate now, almost 30 years later, what a great guy he was. You see I wanted to fall in love like Jennifer Jones and William Holden did in “Love is a Many Splendored Thing.” I wanted some adventure or something different from my middle class upbringing. As to the latter, I got my wish!
I wasn’t “in love” with Richard as I understood that phrase with all of my 19 year old wisdom. I didn’t have that burning feeling in the pit of my stomach that told me he was the right person for me. When he wasn’t around I didn’t feel agitated and anxious like something was missing. I had that feeling for David so I had to be “in love”.
Why am I lately so filled with regrets over lost loves? Have I really missed opportunities for love or am I just experiencing some middle age pangs of regret for my youthful choices? It is one of the principal ironies of life that we make the most important decisions of our life when we have absolutely no idea what we are doing – like choosing a spouse and a career. I found myself continually daydreaming along the lines of”What if?” What if I had married Richard was a question that was haunting me.
Do I really believe that certain relationships are meant to be or conversely not be? Do I believe in fate? Did I make the right decision or a grievous mistake? It was so long ago who really cares and why does it matter? As I passed the halfway point in my life I seem haunted by a need to find answers to those questions or somehow to put the inquiries to rest- permanently. That question was pressing in on me as I had just ended another marriage – my third. How did I end up here I wondered. I have experienced so much adversity and my life has been such a struggle. How do I make sense of it all? Sifting through my past relationships seemed like as good a starting point as any.
QUERY: Can you recall an early love? Is there a lesson or any wisdom to be gleaned from looking back over that first love? Have we glorified it in our mind to an unhealthy level? Is it interfering with our satisfaction in our present relationship?
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