When I was 16 years old I had the quintessential storybook summer romance. This summer marks a decade that has passed since that occasion. This is that story.
We were vacationing at the beach when I met him. It was the second day of our trip that he approached me. I'd watched him from behind my Seventeen magazine at the pool just the day before, discussing his potential with my friend Sheila. We had rated him highly. Later that night we walked along the beach, he held my hand and I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.
He was cute and charming and a little bit shy. I don't know what I was. At sixteen I wasn't confident or clever. At sixteen I didn't want to be me at all, I wanted to be Sheila with her Anjolie Jolie lips and a bra that she didn't have to stuff to fill out. Boys asked Sheila out. Boys did not ask me out.
But Adam did. I remember being shocked at his interest in me. On the third night of our trip, we laid on our backs underneath the stars and he told me that he wanted to kiss me. And then he did, all suddenly and sort of haltingly until I figured out what I was doing. It was my first kiss, I shyly confessed to him. "I love you" he said, with my chin in his hand. And that romance became our summer, until the summer ended. I watched out the back window as we drove away, until I could no longer see him standing in front of the beach house.
Then the phone calls started, long phone calls every day. We planned the future in those conversations, dramatic teenage declarations of love. The relationship shifted, deepened. He became my diary, and I his. Eventually we dated other people. I didn't know what to call him anymore. He wasn't my boyfriend but he was definitely my heart.
And as things do in life, it ebbed and flowed. It slowed down and distanced over the years and eventually faded as we entered adulthood.
Please don't think I'm remembering wistfully. What I am is remembering fondly. See, this summer also marks a decade since the summer, that same summer, when my parents painfully divorced. It was no sweet sixteen for me. It was the worst year of my entire life and that summer romance, that first kiss, that Adam was the only fond memory I have of it. It's a sharp juxtaposition of young love against the backdrop of the shattered family life I was experiencing. It was naive and innocent and distance prevented any physical relationship from complicating things. That summer, that year, that boy was a touchstone for me. He knew it. I hope he grew into a great man.
So see, I'm not wistful. I know the difference between the undeveloped heart of an insecure girl and the richness of intimate love that comes in the covenant of marriage to a man like Jeff. It's just a part of my story.
