First Loves, Youthful Passions, Then and Now...Stories?

I'm curious about what other women have experienced with first loves and how that compares to their current loves and relationships, what it's taught them, what questions it leaves hanging... Maybe it's the hot weather that's got me thinking about this.... Some background on this story, if I can indulge...

I dated a guy when I was about 19-20, who I was so hard in love with. Oh my god, it was powerful stuff. He wasn't my first boyfriend or first sexual partner, but definitely my first big love. I was passionate about him in a way I haven't felt about anyone since, and not just physically. He dumped me when he left town for work, and after much agony (on my part) and back and forth, we eventually became friends again, I loved him too much on so many levels to just cut him out of my life. We stayed in touch for around ten years, called, wrote, sent gifts, visited, and I carried a torch for most of those years, to some extent. This guy was like a drug for me, I was addicted, and his opinion of me meant way too much. Even one of his former girlfriends remarked that we had a very intimate friendship, I can't help but think we must have been lovers or very close in some way in past lives. I felt a deep and abiding affection for him, even after I knew any chance, or desire, really, for a rekindled love affair had passed.

He was a few years older than me, but much more mature, very adventurous, single minded, kind of a visionary, and I was a serious late bloomer. I think he lost patience with my immaturity, and waiting for me to live up to all the potential he saw in me (we were both artists in different media, but he made it his career, and I lost confidence and pursued the "safe" route). We had a very strained and awkward couple of days when I went to visit him in the city where he was living and working, and I haven't spoken to him since. That was about 10 years ago. I never really thought we'd completely lose touch, I figured we'd stew for awhile and one of us would call, but here it is, ten years later, and I still have dreams about him occasionally. I don't know if I'm really dreaming about him, or more an idea, a mood, something youthful lost.... I'll go months without thinking of him at all, and I wonder if when I do, with some longing, if it's really about him. I never had closure with this guy, maybe that's part of it, although I do feel a still lingering sense of loss over this friendship with someone I really loved.

I'm with my life partner now, who is a wonderful guy who I'm 100% sure I'm supposed to be with, but I've never felt that intensity of passion that I did for this first love. I'm bogged down in the day to day grown up stuff, working to pay a mortgage, saving for retirement, working on my health, decorating my first home, doing the jillionth load of laundry, etc. etc., and trying to squeak out a little time for self-growth and connecting with the universe, you get the picture. I don't have any regrets about choosing the man I'm with now, after 9 years together, but part of me wishes I could feel that level of intensity with him, I want him to be the one I'd walk through fire for. I don't know, maybe I'm just an ungrateful, impossible to please princess with her head in the clouds who bought into the fairy tale, maybe it hasn't totally sunk in how lucky I am. I was blessed to be sent someone really loving, stable, dependable, predictable, kind, supportive, loyal, spiritually and emotionally mature.... can't say enough good things about him. He calms me and balances my high-strung tendencies, he's healthy for me. He's the kind of guy you are beyond lucky to spend your life with, he's all the right stuff, and I'm totally plugged into that. But...it's a much quieter love. The kind of companionship that's better in the long run, right?

Anyway, like I said, no regrets, and maybe this is a typical relationship hurdle where things get a little routine and you start making unrealistic comparisons....and remembering things through rose colored glasses and the fog of time passed.... Had things "worked out" with that first love, that passion might have have dwindled, anyway, and the picture might look very different, now. Come to think of it, the last time I saw him, he seemed to have kind of given up bathing.... LOL!

Ladies, what's YOUR story? I'm dying to hear it......

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