The first person you love can shape the trajectory of your life. They live inside all of your future coupling decisions. I had my first real boyfriend when I was 15. He had shaggy, light brown hair and a wide, surprising smile that stretched his face into a completely new person. One minute he could be brooding, then he’d open up his smile and become a convincing salesman, luring everyone into his circle of joy. He was a drummer in the high school band where I played the flute and I can still recall looking up at him standing behind the giant timpani from my spot near the conductor. His face would be serious, shuttered in concentration, but I knew it contained that smile. I was crazy about him.
Some parents don’t allow their teenagers to date or have boyfriends or girlfriends. I understand their thinking: Now is not the time to focus on romance. Pay attention to your grades and activities and don’t get into any unnecessary trouble.
We have no such rule at my house, and neither did my parents.
In fact, I’d say that my son, who is 15, is learning a lot by having his first girlfriend. He’s discovering what it means to consider another person’s feelings, and how it feels to open yourself up to love. He’s learning about compromise and resolving arguments and definitely about the joy of being with someone you care about.
I learned about love and all of those other things too when I was 15, but I also discovered more than I ever wanted to about jealousy. Because there was something else hidden inside of the drummer: an anger that took me awhile to find, but when I did, it began to shape the way I moved through the world.
At first his worries about other boys felt like a gift. Someone cared for me so much that he didn’t want anyone else to even look at me. And in the beginning, his possessiveness seemed harmless enough.
He’d tell me to button my shirt higher, or ask who I was wearing lipstick for, then wipe it off with his thumb. If another’s boy’s gaze lingered too long, he’d shoot him a piercing look.
Later, it got worse. During a party at my house, he yelled at a saxophone player who touched my hair. One day at school, he slammed a trumpet player into the lockers and told him to stay away from me. There were many nights when he’d dramatically screech away from the curb of my house in his Chevy Nova, then avoid my phone calls seeking forgiveness, though I had likely done nothing wrong.
Because he was my first boyfriend, I didn’t understand that these weren’t particularly healthy interactions. I thought it reasonable for him to rage against anyone who tried to encroach on his girlfriend and that I was to blame for somehow inviting the attention.
Don’t misunderstand me. I am not trying to say that I was a victim and the drummer was abusive. He was a talented, creative, vibrant soul and we often had fun together. His anger and passion sprang from the same source: his fractured, selfish heart. And aren’t the hearts of all teenagers selfish? Isn’t the first experience of love a journey into new, confusing terrain?
I last saw the drummer at my grandmother’s funeral over 20 years ago. When we were together in high school, I imagined that that any future meeting would bring back the old feelings, open the heart’s tunnel of lust and love, but in truth, I felt not much of anything. He was smaller than I remembered, his smile still nice but ordinary, and he was with the woman who I heard became his future wife. I towered over them both because I’d grown 2 inches since high school and was wearing heels. I’d brought my current boyfriend who was even taller than me, and it was a strange moment saying hello to my first love and his future wife, looking down at them as if peering into the past from a great distance.
I think the drummer’s jealousy was primarily the result of his age. He was only 16, after all. How could he be expected to keep in check all the fear and vulnerability caused by loving another person? We learn, as we get older, how to keep those worries stowed away, how naked they make us. We figure out how to mute our uglier impulses.
Since that first love, I have never been with anyone else who was as jealous as he was. I suppose I figured out what I definitely didn’t want in a boyfriend and I think it was a good lesson to learn early.
I hate to think of my own son or daughter suffering through love’s many possible pains and regrets, but if you allow yourself to be open to the rapture of love, the aches are inevitable. And I think it’s better to learn about both the ups and downs or romance than to keep your heart completely protected and intact.
Contact the writer: hskyler@ocregister.comTwitter: @heatherskyler
