First loves...and life lessons...

Gabriel Andrew Garcia...my first love...my disaster...another lifetime...

We met at school. I was the nerdy/jock girl who was a little off for the small town on Freer. He was the flunkie drug addict in a postal worker's shirt. In short, it was love at first sight.

Small town boys just never did it for me...and he was the antithesis of normal and safe. He was bounced around between his two parents. He had flunked a few grades. He dressed really strangley. He was openly bi-sexual. He played guitar badly. He had a nasty coke problem. He was really pretty.

I had a big crush on him early on. The first time he called my house was by accident. My number showed up on his caller ID at home (pre-cell phone days, ya'll), and he just naturally assumed it was me calling him. It turned out that his father worked under mine at Conoco, and my dad had called to speak to his dad. Many jokes centered around doing the boss's daughter ensued shortly there after...

Then, we became "we"...

He wrote me these really great love notes that were cheesy and eloquent. We talked about poetry, literature, and Shrek. We danced in the hall way during lunch. He stopped using drugs and smoking (as much). I made him go to youth group at my church (even though he wore a nin shirt w/the word "fuck" on the back). I snuck him into my house during lunch when my mom was out of town. We had a joint birthday at my house during finals week complete with homemade birthday cake and carryout pizza.

Then, a few days after my birthday, he told me his dad was kicking him out, and that he had to move back to Houston to live w/his mother. His step mom was having extreme anxiety due to the stress he brought to the household. So he was out...just like that...and I was all alone again.

We had a goodbye day where we took pictures, held hands, kissed, and maybe cried a little. We started a joint art project involving select Prisma colors and many tiny shapes (a few hearts and secret messages thrown in just for fun). We agreed to talk on the phone, write, e-mail...and stay in touch...we both hoped it wasn't over.

Then, I left to go to Oklahoma for the Christmas holidays. I came back to panicked voicemails from mutual friends and a few of his family members. He had been jumped at a party for an outstanding debt to a local drug dealer (probably the mayor...Freer is so classy), and he had his face bashed in and only made it without any serious damage because his friend held his bleeding, mutilated face over the toilet...so he wouldn't choke on his own blood. There were many stitches and he had his jaw wired shut for some time.

So, with the option of phone out, we did a whole lot of e-mailing and chatting...we would even log onto pogo at the same time and play games for hours...

Finally, he came into town again. Just a few days after Valentine's Day and on the day of my first track meet of the season. It was a great day. I ran well. He spent the whole day w/me...just catching up. I finally was able to return our half-finished drawing. That evening, he told me he loved me for the very first time. It wasn't the first time a boy said those words to me, but it was the first time that I meant it when I said them back to him. It was magical. And, even though my mother hated him, she let him come over and hang out the next afternoon before he had to leave...small joys...

It was around this time that he started sending me photos, letters, sometimes our drawing (we started mailing it back and forth) and his fave Stephen King series, The Dark Tower via snail mail. I came home from practice and sometimes there was a manila envelope on my bed...and I felt like it was Christmas and my birthday all on the same day.

But..we gradually grew apart...like young kids do when there are miles between them. It was hard knowing that it would be many years before I would encounter one of his breed again, but I couldn't wait around for something that would never happen.

We saw each other one final time right around Easter 2002. It was lovely. We still felt the same way about one another, but we knew that it just couldn't work. A calamity of events were sparked from this very meeting, but I will not go into them. This story is about our love, not demise...and besides I'm saving all the good stuff for my future memoir anyway.

Gabe and the situations that he brought into my life revealed to me the true form of many people who were very close to me. He defied my stereotypes of the kind of people who hung out in the restroom during lunch hour...and the type of boy that I was attracted to. Since him, there have been many musicians (both bad and good). There has been the occasional drug user. There have been a few well-dressed weirdos. But, most importantly, I have never settled on what was available. I've always waited from something extraordinary...because once you've had a taste of greatness, normal is never the same.

Gabe and I haven't talked nor seen one another since that last meeting. I've actually been face to face w/him (at my last volleyball game) and just didn't see him (divine intervention...my momma's been praying). I received a few strange and vague myspace messages about a year ago. I think it was just him letting me know that he was still alive, and I had been special to him, as well.

First loves are a sticky thing...you love so openly and blindly that when you get burned by them (because you eventually will) you lose that ability forever. The memory, however, stays w/you always...