My First Love

I met my first love at the art table in seventh grade.

It was not a match made in heaven. The angels didn’t sing.

In fact, I’m pretty sure he barely noticed me. But I noticed him. I looked at him, inexplicably curious about who he was. In my gut, I felt something, knew something momentous was happening.

I was assigned my seat at the table in the back corner. Across from me…the boy was assigned his seat.

Chad.

I cannot describe why I noticed him. I mean, in all fairness, there was nothing super unique about him. He wasn’t sporting a Mohawk or trying to get my attention. He wasn’t flexing his muscles or wearing a pink shirt. He was just there. Right away, something told me he’d be important.
​
Now, four years of marriage later and almost sixteen years since we first met, I can say without a doubt I was correct. 

Why I Married My First Love

There are amazing benefits to marrying your first love whom you met at twelve-years-old.

• We know each other better than most married couples. When you meet at twelve, you truly get to know each other at a deep level.
• We had plenty of years of friendship before we got married. This ultimately made our marriage stronger, I think.
• We have so many amazing memories together. We went on a band trip to Chicago in tenth grade, trips to New York City, crazy fieldtrips in college. We went to prom, graduated together, went to football games together. We have scrapbook upon scrapbook filled with memories.
• There is certainly a fairytale like quality to our love story. We get a lot of oohs and aahs about how we’ve been together so long. I think our relationship proves that monogamy is possible and you can stay in it for the long hall, no matter what your age.

Why Marrying Your First Love is Tough

As with everything, marrying your first love you met at twelve comes with its challenges.

• We do not escape our awkward junior high years—ever. We remember our terrible hair cuts, our insecurities, our awkward moments in our early teens. We were there for all of those moments. We grew up together. So we never escape them. Ever.
• There’s little to talk about. Seriously, we know pretty much everything. It’s frightening how much we know about each other. Sometimes we can look at each other in public and know exactly what we’re thinking. This can lead to some dull dinner conversations and some awkward silences.
• The rut comes early. Married couples often talk about things getting boring ten years into their marriage. Well, we met at twelve, so our “old married people” rut came earlier. When you’ve been together so long, there’s little need to “impress” each other or go on crazy dates. Sometimes we find ourselves in a Netflix and takeout food rut. It can be hard to break.
• Our life is certainly not a fairytale, despite the appearances. We’ve had horrific fights, hurt feelings, and times we wanted to call it quits. We have a lot of them actually…over a decade of them. It can be hard sometimes not to hang on to the resentments from our teenage years or our fights from then. We’ve both had to learn about not holding grudges. If we hung onto every fight from the past sixteen years, we’d both be angry people.

 
Our love story is special, but then again, it’s not. We’re just two average people who found love very early. I know we’re lucky to have found “the one” before we even knew we were looking for the one. I know we are blessed to have so many years together already. I also know it hasn’t been easy and it will continue to be hard.

First loves are always tricky. They haunt us, plague us, and taunt us with what could have been. For me, though, I’m blessed, because I haven’t had to figure out what it’s like to move on from one.
​
I’m still with him.