I have loved Jim since the first time I heard his cautious,
baritone voice say hello to me. There
was a gentleness to his voice that I had never heard before and haven’t heard
since. A genuine kindness that has
become a rarity in our cruel world.
Jim was captivating in every facet imaginable. His complexion was that of a native American,
Spaniard, Italian, and a white American. His eyebrows were thick as a dense
forest. His skin dark and as clear as the sky on a sunny day and his smile was
contagious. When Jim smiled, you smiled.
His exquisite skin was complemented by a 6 foot tall,
proportionate figure and a heart that could melt lava away. Jim was everything that any girl could ever
want. But he never knew it.
I was twelve when I fell in love with Jim. And I was fifteen when I moved away from him.
Jim and I “dated” in middle school. We sat next to each other on the bus and
shared many stories about our lives. He was encouraging and helpful in any
endeavor I had at the time.
But one day Jim kissed me and I panicked. It was the most painful thing I have ever
felt in my entire life. A pain felt so
deep inside that all I could do was to run away. I was in awe of everything in my life;
confused and terrified. Why did his lips
upon mine feel so ideal, so perfect? Why
was my stomach on spin cycle?
When I broke up with Jim a short week later, his devastation
was obvious and heartbreaking. His dark
brown eyes filled with tears as he looked down at me and asked me why. With his soft hand upon my face, I lied to
him. Whatever lie I told him was not enough to justify the horrific truth I hid
behind. He was so hurt I could hear his
heart shattering as it hit the ground.
My world unraveled after my breakup with Jim.
Up until that point in my life the only lips to have ever
graced mine were my sisters. The only sexuality I had ever known was
female. What is this feeling I had
developed for a man?
I began a long journey of questioning my own sexuality. I put all my hate into the one guy in school
that everyone knew was gay. And I didn't talk to Jim. I avoided him at all costs.
I knew I had hurt him and I just couldn't bear the angst.
As it was, Jim and I attended the same high school and of
course had the same classes. We grew close
again through band practice and performances.
I felt myself loving Jim more than I even loved myself, but I never told
him. I was too afraid. I knew I would
let him down and I couldn't bear seeing the hurt on his face.
I moved away from Jim a quarter of the way through Freshman
year. We both cried when I told him and
at that point I knew that more than anything else in the world, I did not want
to leave him. My home was in his arms
and I was being ripped from it.
Throughout high school, Jim and I chatted on occasion. Once I got to see him at the airport when he
was flying through Chicago. At 16 I got
to hold his hand again and see his face. It was amazing how happy we were to
see each other and I couldn't have cared less who stared at us. My Jim was with me. But I was still too afraid to tell him how I felt. By then we were too far apart to have a
relationship and I knew that my troubled past was just baggage. Jim needed to be happy.
Less than a year after I last saw Jim, he met his current
wife. I can vividly remember the
excitement in his voice as he spoke about her. He told me all about her bubbly
personality and her lust for life. I
sobbed for days after that. I knew that
I would never be able to go back and get him back. My window of opportunity had
closed.
With my window closed, a new window and life opened for Jim. For a while I hated the girl and I didn't even know her or anything about her. I
just knew that she was Jim's and he was hers.
And I despised it. I had been
replaced and had no way to fight. I was
too weak.
As Jim and I continued to talk, I learned much about this
woman; she was an absolute angel. She
had a down to earth, fun loving personality and shared just about everything in
common with Jim. I didn't know this
woman, but through Jim I learned that she was amazing. Celibate to their wedding day, the commitment
they made was set in stone.
A part of me died when I read of their engagement on Facebook; their beautiful, classic engagement.
I was so mad of what could have been.
If I could have just been a better person. A person who wasn't confused about their own
life and didn't use self harm as a safe haven for saneness. A person who was
normal.
I questioned so many things about myself before realizing
that Jim did love me once. He loved me
for me and would have accepted any demons inside me. But I was too confused and
too afraid to see it, so I ran away.
Even today, in my most extreme jealousness of this
beautiful, talented woman who married my very first love, I have been forced to
learn I need to let go. If Jim loved me,
then someone else can. It has taken too
many years to learn that if I can just love an accept myself, I can be happy
too.
If you can gather anything from this story, reader, gather
that life does move on. People move away
and get separated. They learn to pick up and carry on. Some just take longer than others. Learn to not live in the past. What is, is,
and unfortunately that is final.
Jim will always be my first love. Unconventional at best because he never knew
how deeply I felt, but still my first love.
And our non-colliding worlds still move on.
-M
