First Love Will Always be Your First Love. The One That Got Away.

Since the internet became accessible to the masses, and with the advent of social media sites (the first one I remember was friends reunited and then MySpace) people have sought out their old loves.

The media reported of old lovers finding each other on sites like Friends Reunited then arranging to meet up and falling in love all over again, leaving families behind to be together again.

Reading these stories would have me wistfully dreaming that one day I would find again the love of my life, The one that got away. I would dream of meeting up again and us both realising we were always meant to be together.

For me the girl in question had been like an open wound for a number of years. No matter how hard I tried I could not heal the wound, whenever I thought it was healing, I would be reminded of our time together and the wound would open up again and I would wish with all my heart to be in contact with her again.

When I finally got myself online back in the late 90s it’s hardly surprising that my first searches were for the one that got away. But try as I might I couldn’t find her. I searched for years, posted on message boards, used every combination of search words possible to find her but it threw up nothing.

I searched her family but again nothing. With the birth of facebook I still couldn’t find her. I even considered hiring a private detective, going so far as to contact one in her home town of Melbourne Australia such was my desire to find her.

It’s probably a good idea at this point to give you a brief history on me and the girl in question, for the purposes of this article I will call her Kate (not her real name).

Me and Kate had met in 1989 in the beautiful city of Bath. I was working in a Hotel as a porter at the time and after a few weeks Kate started work at the hotel as a receptionist, she was Australian from Melbourne and unbeknown to me she had taken a shine to me, I on the other hand although I had made friends with her had no desires for her, she just wasnt the type I went for, anyway I was busy working my charms on one of the other reception girls and also a couple of waitresses. Also my best mate at the hotel had gone on a date with Kate and told me he had scored (something I later found out to be completely untrue).

Every Monday night Hotel workers in Bath would get free entry into a nightclub called Rumours. One particular Monday night I was down there hoping to meet up with the other receptionist; however Kate came in with a group of friends and joined me and my friends in the corner of the club we had occupied. She quickly made it very clear she fancied me, although flattered I still wasn’t that interested, also she was supposed to be going out with my mate. At some point in the evening one of Kate’s friends told me that Kate fancied me, a few drinks later I found myself leaving the club with Kate to chat and we headed back to the hotel where she had a room as a live in worker. I was thinking this is just going to be a one night stand, but to my suprise nothing happened. She made it clear she wasn’t that type of girl so we just chatted. She was a catholic and it became very clear my mate hadn’t even got past first base with her.

In the morning despite not getting anything other than a kiss and a cuddle, I didn’t feel disappointed at all; I actually suprisingly for me at that time respected her for not just giving in like a lot of other girls tended to do. I left in the morning not really thinking anything else of the night, certainly not expecting us to become an item and for her to become the big love of my life. As I already said she wasn’t even my type with her long blonde hair, I was more a brunette man. But alas fall head over heels in love with her I did.

Over a few weeks we fell intensely in love with each other. We became inseperable, for us both it was our first experience of intense burning love, so intense it actually hurt. I’m sure you all know the type of love I’m referring to.

She eventually had to return to Australia in November of 1989 and we said our goodbyes at the departure gate of Heathrow airport promising we would be back together again soon. But In my heart though I knew it was over.

We never finished in the classic way of relationships ending; we were still desperately in love with each other. But distance and her being back at home with her friends and family meant we eventually drifted apart. We kept in touch sporadically over a number of years. We would have phone calls and we would tell each other how much we missed and loved each other. We would send letters to each other, but these eventually petered out. I had met someone else who would become my wife and with whom I would have my two beautiful daughters with. But always in the back of my mind was Kate.

I would often dream of her, I would wonder what she was doing; wonder if she was thinking of me.

I secretly dreamed and hoped that one day we would be together again. Although I loved my wife dearly, it was never with that same intensity and desire I had felt for Kate. As the years went by I settled into family life, an existence I had always fought against in my more younger years. A life of work and mediocrity it seemed, just doing what everyone else seemed to do. A life mapped out in front of you. Go to school, get a job, meet a girl, get married, have kids, retire then die. A story repeated millions of times. From cradle to grave a life mapped out.

I had always wanted more than what others had presumed I was destined to be. I discovered The Beatles and in particular John Lennon at a young age. I began reading books and felt an affinity with John Lennon. In his interviews he articulated how I felt about the world, his songs spoke to me and I began writing songs and poetry myself. In my early 20s I got into the music industry and released a couple of records, this was when I met Kate. Things didn’t quite work out for me in the music industry despite appearences on TV and radio, and I found myself sucked further and further into the rat race, treading the hamster wheel of the 9 to 5, I wasnt really living, I felt I was just existing. But I had a duty to my family, and my girls were my life. They were the reason I did what I did.

All through this time of being a dad and husband and providing for my family Kate was still there in the back of my mind. Believe me I tried desperately to forget and ignore the feelings and emotions that would rise up within me from time to time. I tried to analyse why I felt this way about a girl I hadn’t seen for years and with whom I was only with physically for less than a year. Why had this person left such a profound mark deep within me?

One conclusion was we had never actually finished in the classic sense. We hadnt cheated on each other. We had never agreed to split up. We never said those words “It’s over”. We had just drifted apart due to circumstance of distance. To me it felt like unfinished business. I felt I needed closure. I needed some answers. I needed to know that what we had also meant something to Kate. I needed to know that our relationship mattered, that it wasn’t meaningless, and the only way I was going to get closure was to find Kate and have contact with her again.

So my search for her continued on the internet, every few months I would find myself sat down at my computer searching again for her, but I was never successful. I knew she would probably be married by now and the key to finding her would be finding out her married name, but how would I ever do that?

In 2006 and made my first trip to Australia and visited Melbourne. I had her old address where she was brought up. So I decided to take a trip out to the suburbs to visit her childhood home. I knocked on the door of the house where she grew up, ridiculously hoping she would be there visiting her parents, heaven only knows what I would have said if she had actually been there. As it turned out neither were her parents. The guy who answered the door told me her parents had moved a few years before, but crucially he knew Kate had married and now had a couple of kids. So now I had something, this was the first concrete news on Kate I had had in over 10 years, she was still alive, I smiled and felt a connection again, then a sadness enveloped me also. She was married, she had kids. Although this news wasn’t unexpected, it still felt like that was it, the end of this ridiculously crazy dream of finding her again and us both realising it was each other we really wanted. In reality being such a devout Catholic she would never leave her husband and certainly not her kids and also I wouldnt want that on my conscience either. The dream was over. I returned home and got back into my routine of work and bringing up my family. Every now and again Kate would still enter my mind and I would again try an internet search never expecting it to throw anything up, then one day after years of searching I got my breakthrough. I discovered her married name, and this opened up everything. I found a place where I could contact her and wrote a letter, this was some 30 years since I had last seen her and maybe 20 years since I had last had contact with her. I wrote my email address on the letter in case she wanted to get back in touch and a couple of weeks later I got a brief email telling me she also had two daughters and how surprised she was to hear from me. Our correspondence was brief, a few emails in total. It didnt turn out to be the great reunion of lovers I had dreamed of, but having found her married name I was also able to also find her on social media and see pictures of her for the first time since 1989. To me she was as beautiful now as she was back then. Yes there were crow’s feet and laughter lines but these did not detract from her beauty. She had aged well and looked good. As I looked at the picture I wondered how she had filled the intervening years from when we said our last tearful goodbyes at Heathrow Airport to now. I also felt an immense sadness at what could have been if only we had been brave enough to grab the chance we had been given. I often thought the universe had brought us together for a reason, two people from either sides of the world and from different backgrounds randomly thrown together in the same place at the same time, surely this was’nt just coincidence?

Kate came from a well to do stable loving family who gave her the confidence and belief that everything was possible; I on the other hand was the product of a broken home, brought up by a paranoid mother who always focused on the negative. Thankfully I was more resilient and did not let my mother’s negativity and own life story dictate my own.

Sometimes the universe brings people into our lives that have such a profound effect upon us. They may not stay around for long, but their impact stays with us forever. Kate challenged me in so many ways that I am only now beginning to realise and understand. Kate was a devout Catholic, I was a committed atheist. This would be a cause for many arguments between us, both of us stubbornly and rigidly sticking to our points of view. Over the last few years I have become what I guess one would describe as spiritual; it is a journey I am still on. I can be quite often found sat in a Catholic church having a few words with the big man upstairs and contemplating life in the peace and quiet of the church. If Kate could see me in such a place I am sure she would smile and shake her head in disbelief.

Much of what Kate believed now makes sense to me, I may not identify myself as a devout Catholic or any particular denomination, however I am convinced there is something much bigger than us.

I would have liked to have continued our dialogue and found out if our time together had had the same impact on her, but it wasn’t to be.

Looking back I know I was her first love, I know at that moment in time our love meant everything to her as it did to me. I know she was still thinking of me for many years after she returned to Australia because of the sporadic communications we had until they finally dried up sometime in the mid 90s.

There is nothing as intense and life changing as your first love. Nothing will ever match that intensity of feelings. The craziness and insanity of it all. It will be forever engrained in your heart, it can never be erased, and there will always be a small piece of your heart that will forever belong to your first love. We do however move on, but little things can bring them emotions and feelings flooding back briefly, when they do it will bring a smile to your face and you will be for a brief moment that young vibrant person again, in love.

Your first love will always be your first love, but not necessarily your last love.