I’m the girl who kept the first Bartles & James Wine Cooler bottle after my first “movie night” with a boy in high school. I still have it somewhere, along with the love letters from the boy I dated in grade school. We passed them back and forth while our teacher read ‘Where the Red Fern Grows’ in the afternoons. I remember the folder, blue peechee.
I remember my first real kiss, two weeks after my 16th birthday, on a night I went to a party at Bobby’s house. I lied to my parents to attend, they didn’t know the difference. And even though I threw up from being too drunk while going through a Del Taco drive through, the night was still magical. I remember the U2 song playing in the background when we lay down together that night, to snuggle and touch. ‘I still haven’t found what I’m looking for’, was the title, but Bobby assured me that he didn’t find this true any longer.
I remember my college boyfriend, who brought me canned Spam on our first date. He liked Spam and thought it would be a distinctive identifier for him, because in his mind I was being pursued by enough men for him to be competitive and whip out the Spam. I remember feeling like I loved him even after I realized he had an anger management issue. No one is perfect.
I remember years of partying and having a great time in my 20’s. From the guy who looked like a member of the mafia to the man who wore lip gloss, mango no less, and left me voice mails that consisted of nothing but music. Again U2.
I remember moving to San Francisco and feeling liberated in the dating world. The women weren’t all trying to be thin, blond and aloof. What a relief. The men were different.
I remember, back when it was taboo, getting on to Match.com to try out dating. Momentum was always a theme in my love life, better to come from a place of some movement, meaning some dating/action, than from a total standstill.
I remember a decade of adventurous dating, from Flamenco man to Dolores to The Gambler. What a line up. Definite momentum.
My love life. Not boring, not bland, not filled with the same old. But with standout memories of pieces and parts of a journey through what was and still mostly is to me, pretty mysterious territory.