The one that got away...

The morning show I listen to has a bit that is called "The one that got away" where they select a listener every week who has someone from their past that they would like to know about, and the station will track them down and ask them 10 questions of the inquirer's choosing...The person who initiates the contact isn't on the phone live with them; the DJ talks to them off line and records the answers to play back the next day to the person who wanted to ask them.


The first time I heard the bit, it got me thinking about someone from my past, someone who didn't really 'get away' but more like just faded away...I would love to know what he is doing with his life these days and if he is happy and has a family, etc etc. Not because I harbor secret desires for him, just because he will always hold a special place in my heart; he was my first love.

I met JJ at the lake when we were 13. Like my family, his had been going there multiple weekends each summer for years, only they stayed at a campground just down the lake shore with their motor home, and we stayed at the local city park which allowed overnight camping (but had no electric or running water). We had gotten to the age where we started running around the little town (seriously little, like a population of 100 people little) and met the local group of cigarette and pot smoking, mushroom popping, acid dropping juvenile delinquents with whom JJ and his sister were already running. Most of them were older than JJ and I by a couple of years, we were pretty much the young 'uns. I remember hanging out under a tree at the park the first day we met, smoking cigarettes and listening to the "Singles" soundtrack on some one's boom box and him playing footsie with me, LOL.

JJ and I connected for some reason, possibly simply because we were the two babies of the group. We lived about 85 miles apart, but after that first weekend, we started keeping in touch via the phone - OMG, that first phone bill, my parents almost killed me. Young love; expression of longing and lust over the phone, laying on my bed wishing we lived closer and cursing the unfairness of life and love. We also sent letters...he would spray his cologne on them before sending them and when I got them I would smell them for days. One letter contained a kindergarten photo of him. Another a small trinket that escapes me right now. I know I must have sent him miscellaneous pieces as insights into me, although I couldn't tell you what they were. I still have all of his letters with trinkets intact (along with multiple shoe boxes of notes my bf R and I passed in middle and high school!); I wonder if they hold any trace of his scent? I can still remember it, and on the few occasions that I have smelt some man wearing it in public I have been overwhelmed by feelings from the past. My black trunk containing these and many other reminders of the past has been beckoning me lately; I think an afternoon of reminiscing is in order.

(I just need to get rid of W for an afternoon...Although he knows all about JJ and knows -to an extent- what is in my black trunk, which ALSO includes diaries from the first 4 years of knowing and falling for HIM, it does not feel right to have him around when I am walking that road...)

I remember smoking pot for the first time with JJ, out of a pop can, hiding behind the bushes in the park across the little bridge from my families camp site. The next year I remember (vividly) us giving each other our virginity behind that same row of bushes. It was dark, awkward and painful, and I remember him being SO concerned about me. I stopped the act before any conclusions were reached, but that was okay with both of us. I honestly cannot say for sure whether or not we did it again after that; I think there may have been one more time when my parents indulged my incessant pleading and took us up to their place for an overnight...we stayed in our camper in their yard. JJ took me out 4-wheeling and there was some time spent making out in the woods. I remember I REALLY wanted to, but not sure if it did actually happen or not...

We kept in touch for a couple of years, writing and calling and expressing our longing between those weekend trips in the summer. Most of the summers we got to see each other about 3 times; ALWAYS Memorial Weekend and Labor Day Weekend and once in between. I remember the winters were hard, although we both seemed to get caught up with our lives at school so that it seemed the weeks between the summer encounters were almost harder to get through. After a couple of years, we both got more and more involved with our local lives, and it just kinda faded. In that time I met W, as well as had some weird pseudo relationships with a couple of other guys, and I am assuming the same happened for him.

I quit going up north with mom and dad as I was too involved in my life at home and my partying on weekends to take a break and go hang with mom and dad. The last I heard about JJ was when my brother ran into him at the lake when we were making one last trip to the camp site we had used for YEARS as they were closing it to overnight camping...I must have been 19 or 20; I believe W and I were living together already. I *just* missed JJ; he talked to my brother for a few minutes just before we got there, and then I didn't make the effort to search him out that weekend, which I have never forgiven myself for. I was worried that W (who had a bit of an issue with jealousy and insecurity in our relationship at that point) and or JJ's girlfriend would get mad or weirded out or think my intentions were anything other than they were, which was just to touch base with someone who had been an important part of my life at one point and whom will ALWAYS hold a special place in my heart. He was my first love! So I to this day beat myself up for not finding him and chatting that weekend. My brother found out that he had a fiance, and was still living in the same town and a few other minor details, and assured me he looked the same only a bit older.

So ever since this 'One that got away' bit started, I have thought it would be so great to be able to have JJ answer 10 questions for me; is he happy? Married still? Kids? Career? Away from the partying ways we both played with in our teen years? Maybe most importantly, does he remember things like I do, and does he hold a special place for me in his heart as I do him?

Here comes the part I am almost embarrassed to admit; when the teaser for this week's bit was talking about a man who wants to find a girl he dated in his teen years and whom he shared the loss of virginity with but lost track of I have to say my heart jumped and I thought "Wouldn't that be CRAZY if it was JJ?"...and I seriously couldn't wait for the damn commercial to get over with so I could hear the dude's name and see who he was looking for. Even though most of me knew it was not going to be JJ, and that the chances he listens to this station are probably remote based on what he listened to back then, I still have to admit that I had a glimmer of hope.

It wasn't him, of course.

I have thought about calling in and trying to get them to find him, but have decided it is tacky and could be a can of worms I wish I had never opened after the fact. Maybe he is doing horribly and is a loser and has completely forgotten our history, and if that is the case, I do NOT want to know. I would rather keep it in my head the way I imagine it; that he is happy and healthy and a great dad and has a good wife, and they have a good life, with struggles just like everyone but for the most part they are happy. That he remembers me fondly and holds a place for me always in his heart and wonders about my life and maybe, just maybe, he even still has one of my letters that he just can't bring himself to part with.