First Loves

Ok, so I had a really weird thing happen to me the other day…. I saw a picture of my "first love" holding his new little baby girl and I have to tell you, my heart m-e-l-t-e-d. I mean literally my heart was overcome with pure joy and excitement and might have even skipped a little beat. For a moment I looked at this picture and had a gi-normous smile take over my face, which then faded as tears of happiness began welling up in my eyes, which soon turned into streaming tears of "Oh my gosh...oh MY gosh... OH MY GOSH, you're a dad” tears! And once I got to that point, I got sad. My heart kind of hurt, like ‘Really, you're a dad?!... Really?... and why do you look exactly like I always imagined you would look holding your first child?’

I can’t even recall the last time I saw this person or even spoke to him, but for a split second I was taken back to the summer our paths crossed for the second time in our lives. Then, the next thing I knew I had a slide show of flashbacks flood my mind… It was a summer night before we started high school and we were both totally coming out of our awkward adolescent phases and immediately clicked in front of the Tabernacle at Highland Lakes Baptist Encampment. If I remember correctly, I referred to my Bible as a "Holly Bib-le", and he immediately caught my nervous, witty, attempt at flirting- turned his head to look at me, gave his cocky/notorious grin, squinted his eyes and flirted back!

The slide show continued to my first kiss (with him) on a church bus. I thought about John Michael Montgomery’s song I Love the Way You Love Me; David Lee Murphy’s, Dust on a Bottle; and the New Radicals’, You Get What You Give.

I remembered when we both got our driver's license, which meant we did not have to spend hours on the phone each night. Instead, he would come get me in his blazer (White Lightning) and we would just drive- usually out to the lake because that was “far” to us and would get us just enough outside the city limits that we could get lost in all the "what if'" conversations of life, ultimately dancing around the topic of "us". You know what I'm talking about or maybe you don’t because this was our M.O. We were notorious for “I won’t show my hand, unless you show me yours”.

The memories continued through numerous church events, a family trip to Lake Whitney, High School Graduation, Beach Trips to Port Royal, Ranch Trips, Lessons on how to drive a standard, Lake Days, Sonic trips, dinner at Shoreline, etc.

All in all we knew how to live and love each other to the fullest. Unfortunately, we also knew how to bicker and upset each other to the fullest. Our friendship continued through college and briefly after college. We parted ways after a visit to Atlanta when it became clear to both of us that we had each grown…in different directions, but the right directions that God had carefully planned for our lives.

First Loves- we've all had them. Mine was a good one and to this day makes me laugh, smile, and roll my eyes thinking back through the host of memories and fondly remembering the feelings that were associated with each. It’s funny how these memories resurface from time to time and absolutely weird at the same time. Now, if I know him like I think I do, he is going to be the best dad in the world and spoil his new little lady rotten… with camo gear!