Who Says First Love Can't Last?

Thanks for stopping by for the start of our blogoversary celebration! Don’t forget if you comment on this post or any of the others this week and/or do the things listed on the sidebar >>>> you’ll be entered to win TWO Dorchester books compliments of Tracy this week, and be entered for our grand prize that we’ll give away at the end of the month -- $100 to Amazon!! And be sure to stop back again next week for new prizes and more chances to win!

And now for my take on first love! It’s interesting that Tracy picked this topic, because first love is a topic I seem to always touch on in my young adult novels. Though The September Sisters is the story of what happens to Abby after her younger sister disappears, in many ways it’s also a story of falling in love for the first time. In Abby’s case, first love comes in the form of her new neighbor, who like her, is dealing with loss. In my upcoming book, The Life of Glass, Melissa struggles to define what first love really means as she sorts through the love stories of people in her life, and then, ultimately must discover her own first love. Even in the YA book I just finished drafting (the details of which, I’m not ready to disclose yet) there is, at the core, a 16-year-old girl who falls in love for the first time.

Maybe it’s because my own first love made such a big impact on my life. And I’m not talking about my first crush (totally unrequited, I might add), my first celebrity crush (Jason Priestly) or even, my first boyfriend (a relationship that was totally platonic and with a guy who now only dates other guys). I’m talking about the first time I fell in love, the first time I actually felt real love. That story goes something like this:

I was 15 and had just started my sophomore year in high school. He was a drummer in the school band (I played the clarinet.), and he was cute, smart, funny, and really nice. Just when I almost got up enough nerve to tell him how I felt, he started dating someone else, and I was crushed.

A month later, they broke up, and shortly after, the two of us ended up at a party together. I’d been telling myself that I didn’t like him anymore, that he was never going to like me back. But suddenly, that night at the party, I think he saw me, really saw me for the first time. We started talking, then dancing, and then, right there in the middle of the dance floor, he kissed me. The next week we started dating and . . . we’ve been together ever since. That was nearly 16 years ago.

In my case, my first love became my best friend, my husband, the father of my children. And maybe that’s why I always think of first love as such an important part of a coming of age story, because I’m still reminded of it in my own life. Every. Single. Day. That overwhelming feeling of falling in love for the first time is something that really, truly has stuck with me all these years later.