So I’m stuck and bored and as such my mind wanders to my past and I go places that make me happy so i am going to talk about the first girl I fell in love with.

Its a happy story.

Her name was Jennifer and she was tall and kinda goofy,  blond hair and blue eyes and a grade below me (I was a 16yr old Junior)  and she lived in a posh part of Newton Centre Near Boston MA,  in one of those old creepy victorian houses that isn’t creepy when people live in it,  it was filled with history and warmth and she had an awesome mom and a very reserved father who taught English at one of those Ivy Covered universities.  She had a big brother who was the definition of melancholy except when he has an electric guitar in his hands and she had a little little brother that she adored and we doted on and spoiled.

I was a skater punk at the time,  I worked at a gas station during the weekends days and summers and I worked nights right next store at an Italian Restuarant called Tony’s Italian Villa,  the Italian family that owned it treated me like a son and I loved the people that worked there dearly.

Jenn and I were buddies,  we just hung out,  we were part of the misfit clique,  that melange of different people who are so unusual that they have almost nothing in common.

The last day of school in the exuberence of summer I ran up and gave my buddy Jenn a hug and one of my friends looked at me behind her back and I realized that we had something working,  and a flood of emotion rolled over me….

We started hanging out all summer,  and soon I realized I was smitten with her,  it was so strange sitting next to my best friend and then realizing that I loved her,  it was so natural, so normal,  she showed me all around Boston,  or I should say the parts of Boston not seen by a skater clan racing around,  she showed me the romantic Boston,  I ate foods I had never had before,  we went shopping and walked in the park,  we played in the public fountains,

I remember kissing with her and how awkward it was,  I remember being friends with her mom….and talking with her for hours on the back porch,  I didn’t like kissing her because I didn’t know what to do with my hands,  it was strange I was so caught up in her I was afraid to touch the wrong thing,  I didn’t want to mess her up like I had with all the previous girls….she was something…

I was in love,  like crazy love…after work at Tony’s I would ride the T (local subway but above ground at that part) to her house,  sometimes I didn’t have the money for fair I would ride the coupling and hold on to the wipers at the back of the train,  we would talk until 2-3 in the morning and then I would have to walk home if I missed the last train.

One night,  I tried to wake her up she was on the 3rd floor on the house and I couldn’t get her awake so I climbed the trellis to her window which was this really heavy framework really like a ladder but with plants on it,  and I was talking to her on the trellis and her mom opened the window and told me to come inside.

The next morning I woke her up by yelling the lines to romeo and juliet but backwards  because she wasn;t awake,  her mom was in the kitchen and she came out and watched us play and I kept trying to throw the book up to her and missing and we just made up the lines…I was pulling flowers out of the garden and throwing them at her,  that when her Mom told us to knock it off…I loved more than anything those long hugs..

She was so funny,  she was lanky and uncoordinated and she moved like a puppy almost,  like the parts were kinda new,  and in a way I guess they were,  but to me she was beautiful,  when she laughed really hard sometimes she would snort and I loved it…

in the little town of Newton Highlands people thought we were brother and sister because we just sort of conntected like that. and because I didn’t hang all over her or paw her body….she was ..holy to me…she was a temple mmmhmmm oh Jenn…

That summer she went on vacation and the day before she left her mom invited me to come with them for a week at their vacation home in Maine,  I was going to ride up with her dad a few days after they went up….it was a strange trip with her dad.

That vacation remains to this day the single most best event in my life….6 days alone with the love of my life…

When we arrived,  they had this neat little cottage on this lake that was crystal clear you could see straight to the bottom I had never seen water this clear…we went canoeing Jenn and I and we were in this quiet little cove and it looked like the water was inches deep and I stepped out and went in over my head,  when I surfaced she had steadied the canoe but one of her boobs had slipped and her nipple had slipped out,  and I was so awkward,  because we were just giggling and laughing but her boob was partly exposed and I didn’t want to look it was like she was too good for me to do that….finally I pointed to her chest and said “you slipped”  she giggled and covered up,  and I was flushed from head to toe (not excited just embarrassed,  I wondered if she did that on purpose)

We spent nights with the family,  cards and games and walks up to the country store for cokes in glass bottles,  I had my first lobster there,  her mom ate the lobster’s guts I was grossed out…I found fresh water clams in the lake and we ate those too,  I felt like an indian,  we lived like off the lake we drank straight from it,  the house water came straight out of the lake…

The family did everything together and for the first time in my life I felt completely whole and at home and accepted and loved, not just by Jenn but by her whole family…I can tell you that I have never felt anything like it in my life..

The first night,  when it was time for bed they made me and Jenn sleep in the family room,  she sleep on a daybed on one side of the room and I slept on the other.  Her Father said to me “Son,  no funny business down here, ”  I said “Yes sir!,  I mean No sir!,  I mean ….”

I laid down,  and it was only moments later that the covers moved and Jenn was in my bed,  and I just held her,  I swear,  I held her,  and we kissed and breathed and nuzzled each other all night,  I fell asleep with her in my arms,  I was terrified of breaking her parents trust and also hurting her…and I was scared…I literally had no sexual feelings I cared about her that much…is that possible?  I think back on that time and to this day I cannot understand how I didn’t do things that I learned to do later in life but I was just so happy to have her in my life and arms…

We spent every night in each others arms,  we spent my last night together kissing each other’s tears away until 6 am…

When i hopped in the car go back to Boston with her Dad we both cried so hard her mother was crying,  I prayed all the way to the border for the bridgte to collapse so we would have to go back…I was physic

ally sick..

When she got back to Boston I had pages of poetry for her and the pent up frustrations of true love,  it was the summer of love,  the end of the that summer my family moved to Miami,  I wrote and worked a full time job and spent everything on talking on the phone and writing…..

She drifted and by Christmas I was not a part of her life anymore….I bought her a diamond ring (4 months of work and savings)  it wasnt an engagement ring just a ring to tell her I was coming back,  she never even sent me a card….I stopped writing after that…she lost her virginity that year..it was brutal for me to hear about that…..Life can be a bitch sometimes….

The end of her senior year her mom called me and asked if she could fly to Miami with Jennifer to scope out UM for college and I said for her not to come…..It was one of the most difficult calls I ever made because I loved her mom alot….and I wondered if her mom was trying to hook us back up,  Jennifer never called me…

I have no regrets about any of it,  she was the first woman I ever treated like that and I don’t regret any of it,  I hope she still has fond memories of me,  as I do of her and her family,  I hope she is well whereever she is….

One day I am going to go back and walk those streets again, and I am going to stand in the sidewalk outside of her house and leave a dozen roses for her…she was one who opened my heart and eyes to so much…

Thank you Jennifer,  Jenn….