Meme Day 02
30 day meme...
Day 01 - Introduction
Day 02 - Your first love, in great detail
Day 03 - Your parents, in great detail
Day 04 - What you ate today, in great detail
Day 05 - Your definition of love, in great detail
Day 06 - Your day, in great detail
Day 07 - Your best friend, in great detail
Day 08 - A moment, in great detail
Day 09 - Your beliefs, in great detail
Day 10 - What you wore today, in great detail
Day 11 - Your siblings, in great detail
Day 12 - What’s in your bag, in great detail
Day 13 - This week, in great detail
Day 14 - What you wore today, in great detail
Day 15 - Your dreams, in great detail
Day 16 - Your first kiss, in great detail
Day 17 - Your favourite memory, in great detail
Day 18 - Your favourite birthday, in great detail
Day 19 - Something you regret, in great detail
Day 20 - This month, in great detail
Day 21 - Another moment, in great detail
Day 22 - Something that upsets you, in great detail
Day 23 - Something that makes you feel better, in great detail
Day 24 - Something that makes you cry, in great detail
Day 25 - A first, in great detail
Day 26 - Your fears, in great detail
Day 27 - Your favourite place, in great detail
Day 28 - Something that you miss, in great detail
Day 29 - Your aspirations, in great detail
Day 30 - One last moment, in great detail
Day 02 - Your first love, in great detail
Ever since last night, I've been throwing this one around in my head. The question itself could mean anything. My first romantic love, my first love for an object, the first time I felt love.
I guess my answer here is my first love is the idea of being in love. The kind of love that will last forever, can weather any storm or makes the people around us envious. Love that knows no bounds, shows no fear. Enduring, romantic, sensual, caressing, hopeful, uplifting love. Love you hear about in the great stories and fairy tales.
To be honest, I'm not sure this love is real or attainable. It could very well be something made up to give people something to aspire to, a manifestation of hopes and dreams and desires. In other words, we all want perfection, whatever that means for us. The problem is that no one can ever live up to this ideal.
However, I do where it comes from, at least for me. Being in the closet until I was 21, I couldn't do the same things I saw my peers doing with the people I wanted to do them with. There were no high school dates for me with a guy or chances to go out to explore my sexuality. Everything that happened for me had to go on inside my head, in my imagination. I'm not ashamed to admit I created elaborate fantasies about what having a boyfriend-or love-would be like. The arguments we would have, the things we would do, the way we would support one another. But most of that can be saved for another time.
Being in love. I think before I even had a name for being gay, I knew I was in love with the idea of being in love. Everything in my life at that point had a connection to an aspect of love. Grasping for make believe characters in books or on TV was my way of having "people" to support and love me, not to run away when the things got rough. Because that's what love does. The way I talked about Luke and Leia and Picard and Kirk...they were real people to me, my family. People I could take anywhere and not be alone or shunned. That's love, too.
Even now, on Friday afternoon, as the week is winding down, I get very quiet at work. I put my earbuds in and just work. Why? Here, in Seattle, I know what I'm going home to and what faces me for the next 2 days. Time being alone. Not having someone to lay next to me while we watch TV. Not having someone to wake me up when I fall asleep on the couch. Not having someone to look forward to. No one's there to hug me or wrinkle their nose when I cut onions or give me a nasty look when my alarm goes off way too early. Or the million other things that develop between people who are in love.
That's all part of love for me, too. The companionship, the familiarity, the family. And that's why love is my first love. Even when love feels light years away, the mere thought of the good times spent with another person can fill my heart, remind me there is at least one person in the world who loves me and, in the end, erase the Friday afternoon gloom. Love pulls you out of the dark places and casts light on the world unlike anything else. And that's why my first love is being in love.