Some Dates You Just Don't Forget

Today is my high school boyfriend's birthday. He is 48.

I haven't seen him in twenty five years, not spoken in twenty, but I still think of him fondly, and always on his birthday. We dated for about three years after we met at music camp one summer. We went to separate high schools and lived in towns thirty minutes away.  We had a "trunk line" on the "teen phones" in our homes because we didn't want to pay the outrageous long distance bills talking for hours every night racked up. Yeah, it was a long time ago.

The break up was typical -- months of on and off, push and pull, until it ended in that ugly way teen romances seem to end. Badly.

I wasn't the best high school girlfriend; I know that now. I was demanding and pushy and wanted him to give up a lot of what he loved for me. I wanted to spend every weekend with him (and after he started driving, that was pretty easy) and I wanted...well, everything  I tried to give back as much as I gave, and I did love him. He was sweet and funny and taught me a lot about how to be a nice person. I'm afraid, though, that I was not equally as good to him as he was to me.  In the end, frankly, I was just plain awful.

Still, after college, we chatted a bit, he even came to my wedding. (See, wonderful guy, right?) But we never remained friends, which I suspect is my fault.  I am Facebook friended with his sister, and we had lunch a few months back, and it was so nice to catch up with her. I feel like I still know his family, so I enjoy stories about his relatives (creepy, right?), though we really didn't talk about him.  His sister and I have a bit in common, too, and it's funny now to be friendly with her when, as high-schoolers (the two were only seventeen months apart) they fought bitterly and often, and my boyfriend complained all the time about her hysterics and drama, so we were anything but friends, then.

I probably sound like a crazy, insane stalker. I'm not, though. I'm happily married to my best friend/husband, have two healthy, happy daughters, and a writing life.  I feel lucky to be where I am, and I don't ever look back and think What if,what if?  I just think, Oh, I hope he's well. I hope he's happy. I hope life has been good to him. And I admit that I also sometimes wish I could apologize to him for being the psycho girlfriend.  It's thirty years later, and I'm still sorry.