Teena
Her name still brings a tear to my eye, both from the memories of the good times we shared and the pain she caused me.

Oh, I had had 'girlfriends' before. Lisa at age 8, kissing on the school playground. A massive 5 year long crush on Jennifer that went both unrevealed and unrequited. Another Lisa at age 14 that went as far as petting before she ended it.

But all of these, and a few that came after, pale in comparison to the depth of feeling I had for Teena.

I was 17 and she was 16. Events in my life over the previous 3 years had forced me to mature quickly. I was wise enough to recognise that this was no puppy love in the schoolyard. Neither was it the infatuated explorings and experimentations of a 14 year old. It wasn't even the lust based passion that fuels most 17 year old boys. This was a pure white love that encompassed my entire being. There was no sex. It wasn't required. The subject came up once and was discarded. We were both virgins. I never pressured her about it. It wasn't even on my mind. We spent time together, we talked, we laughed, we enjoyed each others company. I ached just to be with her, to be by her side, to hold her hand, to look into her eyes. I truly felt I had an emptyness inside me that was filled with her presence. Her smile hit me like a lightning bolt, *every single time*. Her laugh sent me higher than a kite. Her goodnight kisses sent me floating home. She was an ethereal fairy princess and I was a clumsy land bound ogre. I couldn't believe that a girl like her would be interested in me.

I still don't know why she ended it. I remember staring at the phone, the buzzing of a disconnected line ringing in my ears. The disbelief of what I just heard. The bright white core of my love for her disolving, becoming a pit of misery. I sat there in a haze of pain for hours. It was days before I could even bring myself to speak the words to tell my friends what has happened.

But that wasn't what hurt the most.

A month later I heard from a mutual friend that she had left home and moved in with a biker guy she had just met.

Two months after that, I was told that she was pregnant.

My pure, pristine princess, who I treated like a delicate flower, who I loved and respected enough not to try and convince her to sleep with me, dumped the nice guy and slept with the next bad boy she met.

I didn't have the words to express my feeling of betrayal. I still don't.

Over the next 2 years I slept with five different women. Five good women. Any of which I could have stayed with, any of which I could have had something long term with.

I ruined every one of those relationships. Me. Stomped them into the ground like broken pottery. I was looking for it, trying to get back what I had had, that pureness of feeling that I experienced with her.

If I knew where they were, I would fall to my knees and beg each and every one of them to forgive me.

Shame isn't strong enough a word for how I feel now.

-- Long time listener, first time caller.
(Zoran, Thu 1 Dec 2005, 20:18, Reply)