The Magic and Myth of First Love
I happened upon my high school journals this weekend. I’ve always known they were there, but lately, I’ve felt a desperate need to consult them. You see, menopause has decided to take my memory hostage.
It’s not that the memories are gone; it’s more like they’ve been borrowed without permission. I’ll be mid-sentence, and suddenly the word I am looking for vanishes. My brain is currently a messy junk drawer where the thing I need is always at the very bottom, hidden under a pile of 80s song lyrics.
I opened my journal, cleverly titled Theresa’s 1st Journal because it’s basically my external hard drive. I needed to see what else the hostage-takers in my head were keeping from me.
I started these journals in 9th grade, treating that notebook like a therapist who didn’t charge by the hour. I told it my deepest secrets and then (because I was apparently a teenage genius) I’d write back to myself with the solutions.
Reading those thoughts now, through the lens of a woman who currently forgets where she put her phone while she’s holding it, was a trip. I was so “tortured.” I was hopelessly in love with a boy named Joe. I spent pages, literally begging God to make us a couple again.
The funny thing is, we only actually dated for a month and a half, but I had crushed on him for years prior. What was the draw? The fashion. Joe was straight out of a Benetton catalogue. He was always perfectly put together: the layered turtleneck under a Champion sweatshirt, the cardigans, the baggy jeans. I wasn’t just pining for a boy; I was pining for a walking mannequin. In reality, the “greatest love story of the 80s” was mostly just me being obsessed with a very stylish wardrobe.
History Repeating
It felt ironic to be reading about my first love because my son is currently navigating his own first heartbreak. He dated a girl who seemed sweet, only to find out she was, as we used to say—a total playa. (Is that word still legal? I’m at an age where I use slang two decades late and with zero shame.)
My son fell hard. They did that “Gen Z” thing where they stay on a facetime call all night just to sleep “together” on the other end. I kid you not, this is a thing. He took her for sushi and crab legs for Valentines Day; bought her a huge bouquet; and would buy her favorite Starbucks drink after school every day. And then came the dreaded words: “I think I need a break.”
It is the hardest thing in the world to watch your kid with a broken heart. You want to shield them, but you can’t. You just have to sit there, fan yourself with a magazine, and wait for the fog to lift so you can find the right words of comfort.
The Standard of Love
As I watched him navigate the sadness, something warmed my heart. Even through the fog, I recognized the man he was becoming:
He opened her car door every single time.
He spoke to her with unwavering respect.
He’d bring her favorite candy to school just to see her smile.
He’d walk her to her door and counsel her when she was sad.
I checked my journal entries and realized something: No one ever treated me like that. Into my 20s, it was the same. I don’t remember one guy who held the door open or offered to give me a massage. I didn’t experience that level of chivalry until I met a certain “tennis guy” from the Hamptons.
In the 16 years we’ve been together, that man has never stopped opening my car door. He has never once raised his voice or cussed at me. And, he still gives me a massage most nights, even when I’m radiating enough body heat from a hot flash to set off the smoke detector.
That is where my son learned it. He didn’t learn how to love from a movie; he learned it by watching his dad treat me like someone worth cherishing, even when I can’t remember why I walked into the room. LOL.
The Legacy
If I could reach back through the pages of Theresa’s 1st Journal, I’d whisper to that dramatic girl: “Stop running. Stop worrying. A turtleneck and a sweatshirt do not a soulmate make.”
I told my son that this heartbreak is likely the first of many, but I also told him to never lower his standard. One day, there will be someone who doesn’t just “take” the kindness he offers, but treasures it. It took me 37 years to find the man who showed me what I was worth, but watching my son carry that same light into the world makes every year of waiting worth it.
My journals were the record of a long, sometimes lonely search. Pages filled with the hope that someone would eventually see my worth. Today, I don’t have to look for the answers anymore because I’m living them. I might forget where I put my keys, and I might lose the words for common household objects, but I will never forget the feeling of finally being home.
Seeing my son reflect his father’s respect and kindness is the greatest proof that the wait was worth it. I finally found the love I was looking for in those pages, and better yet, I got to make sure my son never has to wonder what it looks like.