Gifts

I have been feeling a little bah-humbug lately. I LOVE Christmas, but I am sick of what it has become. It seems the holiday season is just an excuse anymore for people to get a severe case of the “gimmees”. The joy, the beauty, and the spirit of the season has been all but lost. In an effort to recover some of the meaning, I began contemplating some of the best gifts that I have received. Not all of these gifts were at Christmas time, in fact many of them were at other times during the year, but they touched my heart all the same. So my intentions is to write about some of them over the course of the next few days.

I seem to have a surprising ability to have remained friends with many of my exes. After a relationship has ended, we have a choice. We can remember and celebrate the cherished moments, the sweetness, the good times or we can dwell on the mistakes, the hurts and the things that contributed to the demise. I prefer to try and remember the things that touched my soul and helped me grow. I still correspond with and occasionally see, my first real boyfriend, my first love, and the boy I gave my virginity to. There is no regret over what might have been or longing to reclaim what was, we are simply friends. This past summer he gave me the wonderful gift of remembrance and affection. The following is an excerpt of the e-mail he sent me that made me smile and allowed me to feel like I was 16 again. I hope he doesn’t mind me sharing it, it was one of the best gifts ever bestowed on me.

Wow.. after your email I spent some time reminiscing.While you weren't my first sexual partner, you might as well have been for all the experience I'd had (sorry about that), & you were so many of my other firsts!The first girl I ever fell in love with... The first girl I ever got in a fist fight over...The first girl I ever lost a friend over, but not the last...The first jealous-rage drunk I'd ever hadThe first time I learned that a bare shoulder, a look, a giggle, a conversation, sweat, a taste, a scent, a cast on a leg, or a smile could be REALLY sexy... (I'm pretty certain that blindfolded, I could pick you out of a room full of women by taking a quick nibble on everyone's neck)The first girl that ever cried while making love to me...My first real heartbreak.If teenagers can be said to really have relationships, ours was my maiden voyage into the sea of adult emotion (good god, isn't THAT lofty sounding!!)

“The greatest gift is a portion of thyself.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson