I‘m back from visiting the little town where, hold your breath, my first love happened.

Contrary to the usual storytelling, contrary to what I might have publicly admitted, my first love was not a thing immaculate in its idea and form. It had grown, over years that it lasted, into a drive of strongest carnal desires. Except that they were not acted on. Nothing, never. He and I never exchanged a single hug. And yet it was so engulfing, so baby-yerning. And so profoundly influential for the rest of my lifetime.

He taught me that work-related excuses are alright. Hello? At 15! He taught me wicked patience. Anyone still remembers what waiting for snailmail feels like?!

And the key effect it all had on me: I normalised the feeling of not being cared for.

And I loved him. Oh I loved him so much. He would have been enough.

So I was there, in the little town of my first love, of course for things completely unrelated to the business of the first love. And the first thing I hear upon arrival is that while he was there a week before, he was asking about me. Asking a lot of questions.

When I read this (where a woman says men were contacting her to express they were sorry for how they treated her 20 years prior), I took it with a grain of skepticism. Now something similar has happened twice to me. It makes me very, very sad. With all my training in the cognitive/behavioural field, I still have to fight the thoughts of “Had they loved me, they would have stayed with me Then. We could have had the wondrous life so many others live Now.”

I did not ask what his questions were about. I did not ask for anything about him. Not out of pride. But under a burden of knowing: they did not care when I most needed them to.