Day 3: Your first love

Well, technically my first love was my husband, Geoff, but I know that is a boring thing to say.  I guess my first crush was in 4th grade, his name was Scott.  We were friends all the way through high school and he played soccer with my brother.  My first "love," not really love but just teenage infatuation was Matt.  We dated during the summer of 2001 and it was one of the most memorable times of my life, despite it's bitter ending.

Matt and I knew each other basically our whole lives.  His dad was the local Sparky the Firedog and he was a good friend of my father's.  We didn't remember each other when we started working together but became close very quickly (he even went on to tell me that he remembered having played Sparky in a local parade and flirting with me).  He had previously dated a girl from my school and she and I were, well, not the best of friends, so when he and I started dating she started spreading nasty rumors about me at work (mind you, this was a small town and there weren't many places to work so a majority of us worked at a rest stop on the NYS Thruway).  I had always been a little chubby so when this adorable guy who all the girls wanted started flirting with me, I was in seventh heaven and didn't know what to do.

In August, he and I started being more "serious," spending tons of time together in and out of work, holding hands, the whole shebang.  I considered him my boyfriend, though I would come to know he didn't consider me the same.  He was leaving for the US Air Force in September, and we were practically inseparable until he left.  We both got cellular phones when he was leaving so we could keep in touch, and luckily school was starting up again so I had a distraction while he was going through basic training.  (Un)fortunately, his flight was set to leave 9/11/2001 and I was petrified that his flight was one of the ones that was hijacked (though looking back on it, his flight was Buffalo, NY to TX, he wouldn't have been anywhere near NYC, DC, or PA).   Our mutual friend picked me up from work the next day and told me he had a surprise for me, but wouldn't tell me where we were going or what the surprise was.  About 15 minutes later we pulled down Matt's road, and there he was in the middle of the driveway at his parent's house just waiting for us to arrive.  I was so excited to see him home and the next three days are a blur of the two of us just spending time together.  He left on September 14th, 2001 for basic and I (obviously) did not hear from him for those 8 weeks.  They were torture but I talked to his parents frequently and knew that he was doing well.

That November, Matt returned home from basic training for a visit.  I was so excited, but little did I know I'd have my first real heartbreak that day.  We were set to go out to dinner with friends, and one of them stopped me outside the restaurant and told me that Matt was now engaged to a girl he'd met in TX and was going to tell me that night.  I was devastated.  Here I had put my heart out on the line with someone I really cared about and he didn't even have the decency to break up with me himself?  On top of that, I later found out that a rumor I had heard about him using me to win a bet (whether I would have sex with him or not) was true, and he just had denied it  because he cared for me.

Over the next year I worked on getting over him and moving on with my life.  I gained a substantial amount of weight before I went to college (nearly 100 lbs that I have never lost-I am currently at 120 lbs. over my lowest adult weight) but I learned how to be happy with myself after meeting several new people at school.  Matt and I became friends again, I found him irresistible even after all that he had put me through, and our friendship continued until right about the time when I got married, when he considered me "off-limits."  We still talk once in a while but not anything near as much as we talked before I met Geoff.  I still consider him a friend and I am delighted that he finally found someone he loved enough to marry.  I will always remember him fondly despite our past and will always love him just a little.  I'm glad for the lessons that our relationship taught me and have absolutely no regrets about anything.   I now have a wonderful husband I wouldn't trade for anything in the world, and I finally know what REAL love is.