Day Two- Your First Love

*for my young readers- Magnolia Peach, Sasha... And the Infamous La (the best writer in the blog world, who endures my stalker stan twitter screechings and wailings when she tweets something, lol).

I wish I could go back some 15 years ago to my midtwenties, when I was ya'll's ages, that tender confusing place you all now reside. I hope this post let's you know that you go on, you be strong, and life will be alright.*

Man, what is up with ya'll? What's up with the whole population of Lurk City showing up on that last post?

I mean, ya'll negroes came out in a full Thriller dance routine. Shock the cheese outta me!

LOL!!!

Almost got me 'bout to censor myself!

No can do.

WARNING: This post is rated PG. Now, I done told ya'll, this ain't no spiritual blog. But in everything I write, you might be able to read between the lines. Wonder if you can do that here. Hmm.

'Tis my House. I'll scrawl high upon the walls with blood red crayons if I wanna.

Those of you without a past, feel free to cast the first stone or shoot the first bullet.

*Lee handing out sacks of rocks and fully loaded .38s*

*silence from the inhabitants of The House of LadyLee*

That's what I thought. Let's put the guns and rocks away, and continue.

So...

Glad ya'll enjoyed the intro. It was deeply personal. And some of ya'll like that personal ish.

This First Love topic, well, it's a bit personal too. I wrote about it some 700 posts ago (see "A Love Long Gone"). Been thinking about it all day. Even scribbled a few notes while waiting to get an echocardiogram done at my doctors office today.

First loves usher in a plethora of thoughts, feelings, memories, and emotions, you see.

It all had me thinking about a friend of mine, who, in the midst of backing up his truck of cuss on his child's mother concerning child support and custody issues, said to me, with a very heavy heart...

"You know, if I would have just kept walking past her in that club that night. If I would've looked the other way, danced with some other chick, got some other broad's number, I wouldn't be going through this shit right now."

Him saying that, at that moment, place and time... made me shake in my shoes.

If he had taken the right path, things would be different.

Or would they?

Because whatever we've gone through with our significant others- the cussing, the crying, the fighting, the beatdowns, and the breakups...

There was some point in time, long ago, that there was that key ingredient of being deep in love.

With all my men (that I was serious about), I remember when that love component was front and center.

But there's something to be said about that very first love.

That very first one.

No, he wasn't the one to provide the first kiss, the first lay, the first rides downtown...

(Okay, we don't need to go there.)

But there's something to be said about that very first love.

The one to remember.

Picture a 17-year-old me, LadyLee, sophmore in college, a little perplexed about life, pulling up to a Burger King drive-thru window, money in hand, hungry as hell, ready to pay for my Whopper with cheese (no pickles)...

And there he was. Eli. A dude I graduated from highschool with. Looking fly in his brown, gold and red Burger King uniform. As a matter of fact he was in my homeroom. I can't remember if I ever liked him or not. He sat next to me in homeroom at times, and I do remember him pulling me on the dancefloor to slow dance at one of our bootleg high school dances.

We spoke for a moment. He was glad to see me after all that time. He asked for my number. I wrote it on a napkin. I took his number, and shoved it in my purse.

Got my food. Kept it moving. Most likely, I was going over to LadyTee's house since she live over that way.

Eli called and we talked.

And we talked. And talked. And talked.

I'd always admired how well spoken he was.

There's something to be said about that first love. And how he influenced my penchant for well-spoken men, who can stimulate my mind with mere conversation.

There were dinners. There were movies.

There was that Salt-n-Pepa and Fat Boys concert down at the Omni arena.

And there was that one time we laid in bed at his friend's house, a house way back int he woods, behind the cemetary. Nothing happened. We lay there, and watched a movie, and simply talked.

I can't say that I remember the first time we kiss...

Or even the first time he hit...

But I remember him being the first man I spent an entire night with.

Correction: entire nights.

He's the first to make me...

You complete that sentence, because you've all been "there").

In other words, he was the first to make me:

Bump my head on headboards...

Bite my pillow...

Snatch fistfuls of sheets...

Scream for Jesus.

Let's just say that that first love helped me reach my full potential.

He was the first man I ever told late in the midnight hour, in the midst of thunder and lightning, raindrops hitting the roof, Keith Sweat asking "How Deep is Your Love" and "Make it Last Forever"...

"I love you."

He was the first to ever tell me, "I love you, too."

I'll never forget having sex 10 times in one day with my first love.

(Haven't done that since. And with my ratchety bones, ain't trying to, lol).

Or getting busy on the couch. The floor. The kitchen counter. The bathroom sink.

(Uh, you can tell where my mind was at that age, lol).

There's something about that first love... that when certain songs come on the radio, memories come back like a flash flood.

I remember our special song... Stephanie Mills "Something in the Way (You Make me Feel)"



There's something to said about that very first love, that brought me bliss I'd never forget... that would be the best lover I ever had, for years, and to whom every other lover will forever be compared.

There's also something to be said when that thing with that very first love...

Falls apart.

He didn't quite approve when I said I was going to apply to graduate school. I didn't know much at that age, but I knew if I was trying to accomplish something, and if someone in my sphere wasn't supporting that, well... that was bad news.

I know I cheated on him a couple of times, and confessed. He was alright with it, but he started seeing someone else. Hence, some of the most embarrasing times in my life when it comes to dealing with men.

Begging.

Pleading.

Crying.

Sitting in my '84 Cougar playing Miki Howard's "Come Home to Me", hoping it will help us get back together.

(I roll my eyes everytime that songs cue up on my ipod shuffle).

My first love dumped me, for another girl.

I was 20 years old and broken-hearted. Heart broken.

I remember coming home from work one day a year later, and he was there visiting my mother, with a baby carrier in hand. I said hey, didn't look at the newborn.

But I heard the baby cry as I went upstairs to my room....

And I lay across my bed and cried.

It took me two years to get over Eli. Two whole years.

Man, I was on some ol' Milira type crying in the rain craziness.



Had me, my young 20-year-old self, thinking, late in the midnight hour when I was alone with my thoughts and my tears.

"If I would've just taken my ass to McDonald's that night. If I would've just gone straight to LadyTee's house. If I would've just gone home and ate whatever Mama had cooked that night, I wouldn't be sitting here depressed and crying."

Has me thinking now...

Lawd thank you that I had enough sense to somehow go on with my life, to not let love and a man who couldn't think or dream beyond Burger King keep me from realizing my own dreams.

There's something to be said about that very first love...

The ebbs and flows in emotions that it brings.

It let's me know beyond a shadow of a doubt that everything happens for a reason, for a season....

That that love was wholly necessary.

And may even be responsible for who and where I am right now, good or bad.

So that's my tale of first love.

The longwinded version.