Slow down Time!

December is a fast and sneaky month. He sits back all year, quietly in the corner with promise of Holiday and Happy and then when he shows up, it is a full tilt run. Can it really be the 6th already? I still have way too much to do and not enough days to get it done. The schedule is filling up fast and I still have more decorations to get up, gifts to buy, cards to address and mail...wow. I am usually more on top of things, but it got me this year. Guess I was kind of busy with life?

Today is my first boyfriends birthday. My very first love, my first kiss, my first everything...that special one that you hold in your heart for the rest of your life. That one who carves out a place that tells you for the rest of your days that true love is real.

I still remember the first time that I saw him and how I instantly knew something different had just happened to me, even though I did not have a name for it. I had come running back into my cabin at summer camp to grab my back pack for a hike and heard someone crying. He was sitting on the top bunk, balled up in the corner. He had just found out that his parents got divorced. Even covered in tears and upset, he was the most beautiful person I had ever seen. It was like something in me clicked and said, "Him".

We started talking and kept talking into the early morning hours. We wandered in the woods orbiting each other, looking, speaking, wondering. What was happening to us? What was this feeling? We had to know.

We were each others shadow for 8 amazing years. Where you saw one, you saw the other. Eight years of shared time and space. Our families quickly learned they had both just adopted a new son. I was at his house or he at mine almost every night of the week and weekends. Family vacations, church, school, sports...life. High School, College, all of it. Always one year apart but not one step behind. I will never forget looking up into the reviewing stand at my Pass and Review Ceremony for the Navy. He had traveled all that way with my parents and family to be there, to wish me well on my new journey, to say I am proud of you, to say I will miss you, to say goodbye.

Time flies...

We are still great friends after all of these years. He is married now...to a girl!  :)They have a beautiful baby boy now and are so in love! His wife invited me to the birthday party, but we felt it best, to keep our distance, as we usually do. Something we were or shared still pulls at our hearts and in moments of duress we still call out to one another. Over the last few years, when we found ourselves in a jam, there is still one person we call when it hits the fan. I think that bond will always be there for us both. We respect each others space but also know that there is no distance, no time and no space that will bar us from coming to each others aid, should the need arise.

It is funny how life works that way. How it moves us on. Even after years have gone by, there are times when no other face or voice would do for us. He has called me to his rescue and I him, always keeping in mind each others current life and never stepping over boundaries between men and family. Our past is just that.

I had never updated my emergency contact card in my wallet and was stunned to see his face on scene after my car wreck. The police had found his name and number and called him at 3 am while I was being worked on by the EMT.

He showed up.

We always show up.

I think that is what love does.

So Happy Birthday to you Christopher. You have built a beautiful and rich life. You are the best man that I know and I am so proud of you. Enjoy this, your day, and know that another soul carries you in his heart alway, no what the matter. Forever is a long time. Remember when I told ya that? :)

Daemon