The Birthings of Love

Most of my girlfriends had lost their virginity long before I did. It was known by my peers that I was "the last of the Mohicans", if you will. In fact, I was told on many occasions in high school, that there were bets on who would be the one to take it. So, you can imagine the frustration when I started seriously dating Dean my senior year in high school. He was from a neighboring town--our school's rival. Dean was at six feet five inches tall, his school's star basketball player. He was my first love.
My cousin attended the same school as Dean, and thought it a good idea to show him a photo of me on the Homecoming Court from the previous week. After seeing the photo, Dean convinced my cousin to give him my phone number. He called, and asked me on a date for that Saturday. I remember when he came to my house to pick me up to go to the zoo that Saturday. He was tall, skinny, had an earring in one ear, a tattoo, and shaved his head--except for a small patch of hair in the front that stuck straight up. My parents didn't know what to think....and neither did I. To my surprise, he was kind, intelligent, a complete gentleman, and the funniest person I had ever met.
From that day on, we were inseparable. There are so many wonderful memories that I hold of Dean. I wish I could put into words what your first love is like. The innocence and sheer joy is inexplicable......Never to be captured again. Not that you never have a love deeper....just not the first feeling of love in it's most raw form....a beautiful birth....irrefutable in its infancy.
I shared many firsts with Dean.....My first love, my first time to have sex, first time to be engaged....well, that story is for a different day. The point is, I was in love.....we were.
When he got a scholarship to play basketball for a college out-of-state, I couldn't imagine being without him. He decided he didn't want to be away from me either, and we both made plans to attend a local junior college after graduation. Of course, looking back now, I wish he would have gone. We were young and in love, and didn't care what anyone else thought.......immature and naive.
But, life has a way of taking you in directions that you never expected. Or rather, people make decisions that puts their life on a different path......................