I'm in this for the ice cream.

Recently, I've had many conversations with girlfriends of mine about our first loves. They, for the most part, are in healthy-ish relationships with wonderful men. Still, they can't stop thinking about that first love.

I've assured them that it's completely normal--everyone I've ever talked with in depth, and I mean everyone, including people ages 50+, is still hung up on their first love in some way.

My first love came pretty early. I fell when I was maybe 14, dated him when I was 15, and was still pretty much seeing him when I was 16. (I had my birthday in the summer and he was off to college in the fall, for which I had broken up with him.) I remember that for my birthday he gave me a beautiful pot of lillies and said "these represent our love" yadda yadda, something like that, and I killed them in EIGHT DAYS. Eight. That's off the point, but kinda hilarious.

Anyhow, I was really shaken over the loss of him. Once he left and started seeing someone new and I knew he was in love with her (they're now married), I was devastated. I'm pretty sure I haven't been that devastated since, even though I have been in love again.

Some people think you never allow yourself to fall as hard as the first time. In some ways, that's good, because young people especially are in serious danger of an unhealthy codependence. But isn't it also sad, or perhaps a little disappointing?

There is terror every time one enters a new relationship. One asks "do I love this person as much?" "is this the person meant for me in this world?" and when one thinks it's over, they ask "will I ever find someone this great again?" and "is this my last chance to be loved?"

I have no answers here. For whatever reason, though, I stopped thinking about my first love much years ago. Maybe it's just survival, or maybe a change in thought process or a discovery. . .I don't know. It never did me any good having the memory of that pain so close; not as a protection, not as a romantic battle-wound, maybe as an actress, but probably not. Anyhow, having been through with my first love for awhile has given me a chance to theorize. Here's my theory:

Less than 100 years ago, human beings lived more isolated lives. Shorter lives. If you fell in love. . .well, chances were you didn't HAVE to get over it. You didn't have to love someone else. You didn't have constant contact with people who are all over the world, or move cities all the time, and if for some reason you loved someone other than who you married, it wasn't quite the same deal as now because marriage wasn't neccessarily about "love" and it wasn't expected to be.

Our hearts learned to be given once. Now we live in a world where it's not just "only one other person in the next three counties is anywhere near my age". We travel the world and have the internet and constant reminders of how many amazing people are out there for us. We fall in love, but nearly all of us find we have to give that up for something. My theory is that evoluationarily, we simple human beings can't catch up. We get this "I've given my heart." feeling that takes years or pain or SOMETHING to go away. We compare everyone to that first person. We don't get over it; we get through it--hopefully with minimal permanent damage.

I love those stories of "when I saw him, I knew that was the person I was going to spend the rest of my life with" (even though it ends in a preposition). I hope that's true. It always seems to come out of retrospect, and occasionally from people I've heard say it about more than one person. But like I've said before, I truly hope that true love hits me like a ton of bricks. I want to just KNOW, and not have to compare or speculate or worry. Does that ever happen? Really? Somehow I doubt it.

There. That's the tip of the iceberg.