Day 3: Your first love

 After scanning through the list of topics for these 30 days, I sighed to see this one so close to the top. I've had a pretty weird so-called "love life" that included a 'boyfriend' at the age of 9, an online mess for about 2 years and then only 1 dating experience which led to my being married.

I can certainly remember feeling and acting in-love when I was 9. But obviously I had no idea what that really meant. I just knew that you hung out together and held hands and maybe -gasp- kissed them....(No, I never did). But that little fling didn't work out, and I would share an excerpt from a distraught 10 year-old perspective, but I threw that diary out a long time ago.

Next we have the messiest (probably most embarrassing) period of my life where I found myself, at the tender age of 13, completely wrapped in the grip of an online relationship. The relationship itself was already a thing to frown upon, and when it turned out to be nothing but a scam, the "I told you so's" were just added weight to my already crushed 15 year-old self. Would I consider that my first love? I really don't want to...but depending on what your idea of "love" is, it may or may not have been. If I was to go back and ask myself, I'm 100% sure that, caught up in my euphoric obsession my answer would be a firm I am in-love. But when your love was for someone who never existed...what then?

My next and final love experience was about a half a year or so after the disintegration of the former. Also formed mostly online (But definitely 100% sure he was real), I met Nick through an online Instant Messaging box. We talked for about 4-5 months before meeting each other "in real life" and was asked about a month later, on September 26th 2005, (Through said IM box) to be his girlfriend.

And here we are, six years later.

So, who, do you ask...was my first love?
Well, I think I actually left out the most important love experience of them all. Back in 1995, head bowed and eyes closed, I gave my heart and life to Jesus. And sadly, while I may have forgotten Him by the wayside a few times down the road, He is and always will be my first love.
And I never really loved anyone until I loved them second. Which I vowed, 4 years after meeting Nick...to do just that.

And now every day, through His grace I am able to show love to him and to our precious son. Though I still fail miserably at times, luckily Nick vowed to love me back second, too.