Do you remember your first crush? I do. His name was Brett…or, maybe it was Kevin. We rode the bus together on a school trip. We kinda had a moment. He reached out and took my hand as we looked out the window at the landscape blurring by. My heart about pounded out of my chest. I had absolutely NO idea what the protocol was on hand-holding. I mean, how hard to you hold his hand? I’m taking it the vice grip I settled on wasn’t it. How long do you hold hands? Is there a prescribed time, or do you just hang on till one of you has to pee or dies of embarrassment? I was probably fifteen…definitely a late bloomer.

I knew NOTHING. My friend Ann told me about periods and that you get pregnant when a boy does something with his hand but I had no idea how THAT worked. My mom wanted me to stay in the dark and be an old maid. I probably would have if it hadn’t been for the other half of the school trip I was on.

We were in Gatlinburg, TN staying at a Travel Lodge. There was a stream roaring right behind the motel. I’d never been on a bus. I’d never been away from my mother. I’d never seen the inside of a motel room. This was all SO exciting and my mind was racing. It seemed like my hand-holding faux pas nipped the crush in the bud. Teenagers are nothing if they aren’t adaptable.

We were all running up and down the balcony walkways, talking and laughing and looking into everyone’s room to see what was happening. I was talking with someone when I looked in one of the rooms and there he was…my future husband. Oh…no, it wasn’t a crush thing. He wore striped pants and a polka dot shirt and he was calling his mom to let her know we were there safely. I didn’t see him as “my type.” The closest thing to “my type” that I could think of was Jay of Jay and the Americans. He was dreamy.

But, as fate would have it, three years later that fellow and I were dating and at the VERY young age of nineteen, I became his bride and we moved to England for his tour of duty in the Air Force. Ours was the tender teenage love of the movies. He courted me relentlessly till I gave in and went out with him. Hubby #1…the father of Daughter #1. It was a complicated relationship and failed out of nothing more than naïveté and disillusionment.

I remember those sunny days when we were first dating…the summer of ‘69…the Beatles…the Ed Sullivan Show…Armstrong walked on the moon. Woodstock. The Summer of Love. Firsts. Lots and lots of firsts. But running through it all is a memory of laying in the grass at the top of our hill pulling the petals off of daisies.

He loves me. He loves me not. 

If I’d only known then what I know now. Good thing it doesn’t work that way. I may not have my beautiful daughter and I wouldn’t be who I am now. I’ve said it before…I’ll say it again. We cannot rewrite history. I don’t think I would if I could. Besides, God put me where he wanted me. It may not have been for a lifetime, but it certainly was for some valuable life lessons.

🩵

“When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.”   ‭‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭13‬:‭11‬-‭12‬ ‭NLT‬‬

***Gratitude Journal***   
Today, I am grateful for all the lessons I’ve learned in life and for a loving God who waited for me patiently.