First Love Hurts When You Must Leave Behind Smiles

They say you have one great love in your life, I disagree. With this song comes a memory of a man full of surprise and mystery. Our last hour together, my ride was ready to settle into driving back to Cleveland. She flicked the radio. There it was, the song this other soul-love I fell hard for, shared a very romantic experience in the parking lot by his apartment complex. Ours was a love that will never be matched by another. It was unique in compassion, tolerance and even eventually forgiveness.

I was young, met him when I was a mere eight year-old little girl, stuck to him, eventually on him. By 17, for we grew up with each other over the course of nine summers, I was head over-heels-in-love. There were many good and not-so-good, tearful even, memories between us, predominantly associated with this song. It played everywhere. He even mocked the singer on occasion when smooching with me. It is kind of a ‘wrap-up of what we shared-everything’ kind of song. The coincidental semblance to another relationship involving music, this man only sang just the one word . . . “memories”.

For him the song probably means just as is, for me, so much more. A mark of both betrayal and deep commitment. Recalling shedding a layer of vulnerable skin giving in to the penetration of disharmony to whither my belief in forever. A learning experience: Love hurts. The deeper you love, the deeper the wounds, the longer for them to heal. Memories, if all you have, never fade; while broken hearts heal and minds are re-made. Bitterness prevails, forgiveness waits.