Seeing My First Love Years Later

It requires certain boldness for a married man to reveal the story of his teenage romance. It would raise more eyebrows when I talk about the experience of seeing your first love years later and feeling the same love embroiling my heart. Some may call it risky, to open the ‘chamber of destructive secrets,’ for a happily married man.

But that’s exactly what I am going to do.

I may be wrong or right. You can judge me as you wish. Society cannot decide whom I should love or how I should live. Every individual has his own way of life and society cannot live it for him or her.

I am writing this to unburden my heart of that secret.

Meeting My First Love Again After 20 Years

I met my first love after 20 years at a wedding. Yes, 20 whole years is a long gap indeed. I can even tell you the exact number of days we were apart. It’s not that I was counting. But, somehow my inner clock knew it for my heart was always yearning.

When I glanced at her, she was chatting away with some women. I saw a tint of grey in her hair, slight dark circles under her eyes and some of her charm, faded. Her thick, long hair had been reduced to a thin bundle. Yet, in my eyes, she was still as beautiful as she used to be.

I stood there, admiring her beauty, breathing in the fragrance of each moment. It almost felt like first date nerves all over again. She turned her head and looked straight at me, as if pulled by an unseen cord. A glint of recognition, or love, sparked in her eyes. She walked towards me.

We both stood silent, looking into each other’s life. Was I going to be reuniting with my first love after 20 years?

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She came over to talk to me

“It’s my niece’s wedding,” she said, breaking the invisible wall of silence between us. I was glad I didn’t have to deal with being ignored and that she had approached me herself. But I found myself feeling terribly anxious.

“Oh, how wonderful. I am a distant relative of the groom.” I gulped. I felt the same rush of nervousness that I used to whenever I saw her in school. I had turned into the same teenager who was afraid of proposing to her. It was that fear that had divided us forever, I knew.

“How are you?”, I mustered the courage to ask. I was still in awe of the enormity of seeing my first love years later with no warning.

“Fine.” She fell silent and twisted her wedding ring.

There was something in her eyes and I knew what it was. She had the same feeling as I did. Neither of us were bold enough then, or now, to open our hearts. I was still in love with my first love even after 20 years and I knew it in my heart. I just wasn’t sure about her.

“We live in the UK,” she said.

“And I am here in Atlanta.”

It was the first time ever we were standing that close. I never had the courage to go closer to her. I admired her beauty from a distance, as did many other teenagers in our high school.

Meeting your first love again can be enchanting

We talked animatedly about our how our lives had unraveled the past 20 years — dating in college, our friends, our life, and everything we could speak of. I was not bored even for a second. I could feel the pain seeping through my soul. You never get over your first love, do you?

“Your phone number?” I asked, as she was about to leave.

“Ummm…” She stood there thinking.

“Alright, let it go,” I said, with a wave of my hand. “These moments are enough, I guess. I can live with this beautiful memory of running into you.” I don’t know how I got the courage to say that sentence. We both have our own lives, as precious as this relationship. We cannot have one relationship at the cost of another but I have learnt now that you never forget your first love.

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“Moments. Beautiful memory? ” Her eyes welled up. She turned around, without wiping her eyes, and walked away.

I may or may not see her or talk to her again. But those moments will be enough to cherish for my entire life. These moments are what make life. Aren’t they?

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