First Love

It’s spring cleaning time and for me this has meant sorting through the few remaining effects of my marriage. I decided to look at everything and store a few things, like the wedding photos, that I cannot yet bear to part with, in a box put away out of sight. The rest of the stuff I have either binned or sent to him.

I’m a bit of an old romantic and I had kept all the love letters he wrote me over the years, in fact not just the love letters, but all the birthday/Christmas/valentines cards and even the many many “sorry it won’t happen again” letters. As I found them I read a couple. I thought I would find remembering his words of love painful; I thought it would make me feel a huge sense of loss that I don’t have his love anymore. Not so. I felt a little cross and irritated as I read them and realised what utter rubbish he was talking, I read a couple and realised that none of his long eloquent words were sincere. I had thought I might keep a few special ones in my memory box but with a big “pft” I threw the lot in the bin, not really feeling anything.  A friend suggested I burn them, but you know they were such a load of insincere tosh they weren’t even worth the effort of striking a match.

The realisation that he never properly loved me has been hard for me recently. I know it’s not my fault and that the reason he didn’t love me was because he is broken, that he is the one incapable of loving, nothing to do with me being unlovable. But, I have felt melancholy that I have wasted so many years when I could have been with someone who loved me, actually loved me for me. I had been thinking how tragic it is that I have never known real love.

But then  after I had finished going through the stuff to do with my ex husband I decided I may as well sort through all my other old treasure, maybe let go of some more possessions from my past as I embrace my future. And that’s when I found them.

Real love letters

They weren’t full of eloquent poetry like my husband used to write. My boyfriend before him was a musician, he could write a beautiful melody but he wasn’t so great with words. But they were real, they were genuine. There was not a hint of manipulation in them. But two simple phrases of three words each changed my view of myself. They were “I love you” and “I miss you” There were no apologies for having hurt me (because he didn’t) there were no long passages about how I was his princess or the one who completed him, there were no empty promises about our future together. Just simple heartfelt words about how he loved me and missed me.

And whilst ultimately we weren’t right for each other,  I can look back and see the mementos of that young first love I had with a functional human being, capable of giving and receiving love,  who taught me to give and receive love and I realise I don’t need to mourn that I have never felt real love, because I have.