Nostalgia

Our lives are changed by events and by the interactions we have with others. We can spend endless hours with someone without incident but a single conversation with someone can totally turn your world upside down. 

Our formative years are responsible for defining who we are at our core. The influence our parents and significant others (aunts, uncles, siblings and grandparents) have on us in the first six years of life forms the basis on which our morals, values and ideals rest. Changing those core structures instilled in us is a challenging task to say the least.

There are people that float into and out of our lives with little effect. There are others that leave lasting impressions.

First love is one. You never forget the person you first fell in love with. I was blessed. My first love was energetic, honest and innocent. My parents tried to convince me that, at seventeen, I was too young to be in love but they were wrong. The first man I loved was really just a boy but my love for him was real. As I get older, I realise how lucky I was to have such a great experience with my first love. While he left me because I would not give up my virginity, he did so without being an arse about it. Don't get me wrong, he still broke my heart but I can honestly say that that boy, at seventeen, had more integrity than most men in their forties do. He is the man that I have turned back to in my deepest darkest moments as proof that I am lovable. While I have not been in contact with him for a very long time, the way he loved me all those decades ago is one of the things that pulled me through the darkness post divorce. While my ex was telling me that I was fundamentally flawed, I returned to the time when my first love took me to a cave at a beach where, the summer before, he hard painstakingly carved my name in stone. The thought that it is still there twenty years later as a testament to the way he felt about me gave me strength. He's probably never thought of it since but it is one of the small things he did that has stuck with me throughout my life. It is etched in my mind as a turning point. He melted my heart that day and forever burned his mark on my expectations for how I want to be treated by my partner. That small romantic gesture of a teen was pivotal in my resolve to demand better.

That man, spiderman as my uncle nicknamed him due to his teenage lankiness, wrote me love letters on a daily basis. I saw none of the tough exterior that he displayed to others in our circle of friends. With me, he was tender and thoughtful. We wrote in code, so his friends couldn't interpret our messages on the school bus in the morning. But he wasn't shy - he'd often lean out the bus window as he drove past my Catholic girls' school and yell "I love you Mans". My heart would skip a beat as I smiled back at him, too timid to profess my love in return. That didn't deter him and it made my day, every day!

We'd spend hours on the phone at night and all the time we could around our sporting obligations on weekends. He came away with me and my family and I was welcomed into his with dinners on Friday night after school and trips to his family caravan. I adored his mother who sadly died too young and played heartily with his little sister. We were not like most of our peers - immersed only in bedroom activities. Our love was deeper based on true connection and shared interests. He played basketball and Dad would take me to his games on a Thursday night. I played netball and he'd occasionally catch the bus down on a Saturday so he could spend time with me after the game when I wasn't working. We played pool with his brother for hours listening to heavy metal (which my mother hated and was convinced I was depressed).

I have not thought about spiderman since I started dating my boyfriend but there was something that happened on the flight home from a weekend away with my man, I cannot recall what it was exactly, that brought him back into my mind. While I flew, I reflected on how lucky I was to have shared a slice of my life with him and how grateful I am that he set such a stellar example for me to return to. I have, once again, found a man that treats me like I want to be treated.