Winter must be cold for those with no warm memories

“Winter must be cold for those with no warm memories” (An Affair to Remember)

It was the first day of winter today. The first day in November a chill filled the air. So cold you bypass the shadows and head straight for the sunlight paths. But it was there among the cold I walked alone.

I was running errands and getting swept away by the Monday Blues. I made it to my car finally and got in as quickly as possible. I burred loudly as an alert flashed the screen on my phone. I looked down and realized my calendar was alerting me of birthdays and such. I scrolled down and I saw his name.

I found it strange that I still held this information after so many years. Even more surprised when I realized it was in some way comforting. And in that car alone, on the first day of winter, with a chill in the air… I felt warmth.

I was only 15 when I met him. I was Cinderella at the ball when I met him, and he was the prince who found my lost slipper. I remember it well. I was sitting down when he walked in to the skating ring. I’d just suffer a hard fall and was trying to recuperate. A bit embarrassed I was taking my skates off when he came over. He’d recognize a mutual friend sitting next to me and wanted to say hello. He had a smile on his face when he introduced himself to me. He asked me what I was doing. And I said that I was quitting.

He laughed and said “Don’t do that. Come on, come with me. I promise, don’t worry, I’ll be there to catch you if you fall.” He extended his hand and I took it.

He was a stranger. But as I took his hand and proceeded to skate with him side by side I forgot all about it. He was charming, and witty, and terribly sweet. It felt safe, and warm, and right.

So we skated the rest of the night, and when the night ended we said goodbye. Sadly, neither one of us thought of asking the other for each other’s number. And yet somehow, I knew I’d see him again someday.

Months passed before I ever did. It was at a convention. I was about to take a step down the stairs when something made me turn left. And there he was. Dressed in a suit, and enchanting smile, just a couple feet away from me. Our eyes met, and we both swiftly moved towards each other. Needless to say, when the convention was over he asked for my number then. The rest as they say was history. Beautiful, first love, enchanting history.

We invested 5 years into each other. We loved foolishly and sometimes blindly the way first loves are often lived. It wasn’t a perfect love. It was after all my first. It was full of mistakes, much on my end for being so young. Full of emotions and ultimatums.

Expectation is what ruins first loves, and it did ours. I’d expected love to be a certain way, having it been engraved in me when it didn’t pan out the way I planned it, it felt like the sky was falling. But he never wavered. He loved me unconditionally. So beautifully that I couldn’t help but keep coming back to him.

The magic of first loves is our ignorance that it can never end. But they do. Because at that age, butterflies never lie still long enough. We parted ways at the end of those 5 years, and moved on with our lives.

I loved him dearly, and I know he loved me very much. But sometimes all the love in the world won’t save a sinking ship. Sometimes you just have to jump over board. And though till this day it warms my heart when I see him, an ending was an ending. No matter how many pages of beautifully written stories led up to it, it would always have the last word.

It’s been many years since then, time and distance created an inevitable gap, and needless to say we both ventured off into different territories. But even so sometimes I can still close my eyes and hear him say “Don’t you worry, I’ll be there to catch you if you fall”. And it still warms my heart.

So maybe I never really got Cinderella’s ending. Maybe in the process the glass slipper broke, but the story well that lives on forever. When I recant the story, I realize how terribly fortunate I was for having had an almost perfect first love. It set the standard pretty high thereafter. And left me a bit of an optimist when it comes to love.

I don’t know where he is in life, strangely enough. But wherever he is I wish him well, and happiness, and lots and lots of love because he deserves it. I adore him still, and always will, after all no one forgets their first love. I have only fond memories. Sweet rose colored memories. And I always will.

Some people in your life create that kind of impact. That inevitable mark in your heart that leaves you changed forever. Making you forever indebted with them for helping shape you. And thanks to him I learned what love is.

Sarah Dessen once wrote: “Some things don’t last forever, but some things do. Like a good song, or a good book, or a good memory you can take out and unfold in your darkest times, pressing down on the corners and peering in close, hoping you still recognize the person you see there.”

And it’s true. Winter may be cold and bitter, and you might burr in desperation at times when it comes to love, but warm memories, well they stay with you forever. And they give you hope in despair. They remind you that if all else fails, eventually, spring will come.