Do you ever get over your first love?

There are 3 reasons that compelled me to write this blog

1. I had a discussion with Tamara where we were talking about first loves and how we would feel if they resurfaced after all this time. Even though we felt we were both over them, we both said that we would definitely meet up with them again.

2. I have been home for a week sick like a dog with flu/sinusitis. I have been watching Ricki Lake more or less every day. Today there was a woman who came to confront her high school boyfriend for denying her. She was married with a kid and still wanted closure! She kept asking, "Why did you do that to me? Ten years later!

3. I went to my friend Chrystal's house last week and as I walked into the house her 10 year old girl child hollered at me, "Aunty Zara we found a picture of you." I didn't think anything of it until her mother Chrystal chuckled at me and said, "You know that book you gave me we found a picture of you inside it." (I gave her some of my books from childhood for her daughter) I didn't know what she was talking about and then the child said to me, "You were lying on a beach in a bikini." I asked her mother what the child was talking about and she couldn't stop laughing,

"What is she talking about?"

"I can't tell you!"

I was baffled. I set to work on the child,

"What is your mother talking about?"

"I can't tell you. My mum told me not to tell you."

"C'mon just tell me."

In the meanwhile her mother was turning the front room upside down searching through drawers like her life depended on it.

The more frantic the action the more I became anxious. What were they talking about?

Ten minutes passed and no picture,

"Chrystal tell me what picture is it? You can't find it so tell me what it was?"

"No I can't tell you just wait… You have to see it."

I was the cat and curiosity was killing me. After a good ten minutes the picture appeared. It was taken in 1999 on a beach in Miami. The same beach where I met .DAVE . I laughed when I saw it. It brought back memories. Good ones.

I was in the corner of the picture, barely visible, white bikini top blue bikini shorts, in the middle of the night, dark.

"Is this what you stressed me out for?

She was in fits of uncontrollable laugher.

I asked her,

"What is it?"

"It's not the picture although I wondered why you would keep a picture where all you can see is your pinhead."

"What is it then?!

"It's what you wrote on the back… YOU PSYCHO!!! (more uncontrollable laughter)"

I grabbed the picture and turned it over.

EMBARASSMENT!

I had written,

Dear Francis,

I came far and beyond to another land

To write this message for you in the …

And the message can be found in my scriggedy scrawl.

After reading the note on the back the memories came flooding back. I turned the picture over and remembered the night Caroline and I headed to South Beach carving out names in the sand and taking pictures of ourselves next to the carved messages.

In the sand I had written: I LOVE FRANCIS and got her to take my picture next to the message! Likewise she had carved out her own message to her love and we had said we would send them when we to back to the UK. Obviously I had never sent it, as was clear from this note still surviving and doing the rounds.

I had completely forgotten about it and it brought back a flood of memories. Namely all the love notes I used to send him back then.

Where was he?

How was he?

It was 2008 and I hadn't heard from or seen him since 2003. He had turned up at my house early in the morning telling me how he had a child (At this point it had been over a year since I had seen him) I remember telling him that I was happy for him yet at the same time feeling devastated, feeling that he was gone from my life forever. I hadn't thought about him much in this time but the appearance of this picture/note had forced me to think about him.

Curiosity got the better of me and I googled him. I didn't expect to find him as back then he was a hardcore criminal and definitely wouldn't use his real name for anything. Anyway I googled anyway… and guess what I found him. Picture and all. He is an actor now. It was weird. I didn't know how I would feel. One the one hand I was happy for him, on the other hand I was sad, and it brought back a rush of emotions, some good… some bad.

So tell me do you ever get over your first love?