Tiny Dancer

I think everyone has multiple "true" loves. There are so many people in the world, how could we be limited to having just one be "the one" for us? I am thinking of this right now because of the song I’m listening to, "Tiny Dancer". I’m sure you’ve heard it before, I don’t know anyone who hasn’t. Anyway it used to always make me think of my first love, a boy from California. When I listened to it it would remind me of the limited time we had together, and how special those months had been. I knew that long distance couldn’t work, and I never pressed the relationship further than the summer we spent together. It would have been even more heart breaking to have a boyfriend in another country. All I have to do is read the word California and suddenly every moment we spent together comes back to me. The nostalgia can be overwhelming at times. I was seventeen when I met him, his name is Jeff.

Anyway I loved him in a way that you can only love when you know time is limited. Sure, there is never truly enough time to spend with the one you love, but it’s a different ball game when there’s only a couple months with someone who is special to you. I often think of the night we first kissed. I’d kissed others before, but he was the first one who made it feel… good. Special. Important. Whenever I think of that kiss, his real first kiss, I become so sad, so melancholic, and so, so grateful at the same time. 

Sometimes I wish I could be seventeen again and relive those moments over and over again. Anyone who is that age should cherish it. The last year of childhood. I was so Innocent back then. I searched so long for that innocence after I lost it… and now I only ever find it in moments and memories in the back of my mind.

When I met my current boyfriend I was fairly positive it wouldn’t work out. He was sort of seeing someone else and didn’t seem interested. But I would think of our first meeting and how beautiful and innocent he seemed and it would make me so sad that it wouldn’t work out. So I would listen to the song Tiny Dancer and think of what it was to be innocent, what it was to feel that kind of joy that comes only with new experiences. Eventually I found out my boyfriend was interested in me, and we started hanging out. 

I will call him Bee. Anyway, so Bee wasn’t like the other guys I’d met in the past 3 and half years since Jeff. He didn’t try and get in my pants right away, which was a relief to say the least. And when we’d go for walks through the park or down the city streets it always felt so new and exciting even though I’d walked those same paths a thousand times before. He makes me feel young again. Which might sound silly seeing as I’m only 21. But sometimes I feel so ancient and tired, like I’ve lived a million lives, and it’s so nice to feel New.

I fell in love with Bee so easily. There was nothing about him that I would ever change. He changed my interpretation of love, too. I realized I could love anybody as long as I found some goodness within them, or as long as I was willing to give to them. And it’s really great being able to love so easily.

Of course I do have issues with him. We went through a significant bickering stage, but we’re on the recovery now. And no matter where we go or how many times I’ve been there, it still always feels so new.

Anyway because I listened to Tiny Dancer so much when I first met my boyfriend, now whenever I hear the song I get a mix of memories of him and my other love. It doesn’t feel like such a sad song anymore.

I think they are both true loves, and that is wonderful and sad at the same time. I’ll never know how different true love could have been with Jeff. But I suppose that is life and I am still infinitely grateful for Bee, and besides which… he’s cuter! I wonder if he will be the last True love I meet. I hope he is. Lamenting seventeen is enough for me, no need adding 20, 21 to the soup.

I’m so happy I found someone else who makes me feel new. Love is such an easy yet wonderful feeling, I have no idea how people can scorn it the way that they do. Even though it could never have worked out with Jeff I’m still glad I met him. He taught me how to love, and without him I don’t know if I would have loved Bee so much.

Really though, I think Bee makes me happier than Jeff ever could have. But first love will always hold a place in my heart.