You walked into that room and entered my heart

Love is a funny thing. Every Friday when I was five years old my mother would drive me to my grandmother’s house. My brother and sister were in school and my mother’s beauty parlor was around the corner from Nanny.

She dropped me off at ten o’clock and would re-appear after lunch with her hair coiffed majestically and a trunk filled with groceries.

It was a fun day. Nanny, dressed in her suit, hat, and white gloves and I drove around the corner to the deli where the man behind the counter handed me a piece of lox on a bagel, before getting down to business.

“I’d like three pounds of nova and remember to keep your thumbs off the scale,” she would say week after week.

Returning to the house, Nanny removed her hat, reached for a linen apron from the kitchen drawer, and prepared an omelet with a salt bagel and butter and lox. I was more in love with each bite.

As I grew, I discovered more to love than somebody taking the time to prepare my lunch.

In fact, by the time I turned fourteen, every time a girl my age walked by, I was in love.

The first time I had sex, I was in love.

The second time I had sex, I was in love.

The day the New York Nets traded for Julius Erving; I was in love.

The day the hiring manager offered me a job, I was in love.

Confusing love with somebody performing an act that brought a smile to my face was misleading.

It wasn’t just acts of kindness or pretty girls that caused this feeling within me. As I grew into a young man, I understood that we could love people who would help us or listen to us or work with us.

But, separating love for people important to us and that one special love is the challenge.

I was 24 years old sitting in a training class for a job I started one week earlier, nursing a hangover and trying not to sweat too much.

Arriving Sunday night with my four brand new suits and official calfskin briefcase, I was planning on eating dinner and going to bed early. As they say, “the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.”

The trainer was waiting for me at the check-in desk and asked me if I had ever seen the movie “Terminator.” (Did I mention the year was 1985?).

After explaining that my room had SpectraVision, he asked the clerk for my room number.

“Great. I’ll meet you in ten minutes,” he said.

“Terrific. The trainer is meeting me in my room in ten minutes. This can’t be good. What the heck is SpectraVision?”

He arrived at my door with two six-packs of Budweiser and explained that he was a film major in college who could show me things I would never otherwise notice in any movie. He was superb with Hitchcock films.

We finished the beer as the final credits rolled and it felt as if I had known him all of my life.

Monday’s lunch included pitchers of beer followed by afternoon training and Happy Hour at the hotel bar.

Sitting in Tuesday’s training class was difficult as I watched multiple department heads walk in, explain how their departments worked with the sales team, and walk out.

The last manager entered. My head was pounding, and the sweat was dripping as I looked down at my table reaching for several paper napkins next to the pitcher of coffee in front of me. As I looked up, my spinning head locked in on her.

A dark green suit with matching pumps. Big auburn hair with hazel eyes shaped like almonds. No smile. No forced jokes. This was the epitome of drop-dead gorgeous and she was looking at me.

I was in love. Again. But this was different. She explained the function of her department. Answered two questions and was heading for the door. I heard nothing, only the angels singing as I stared causing the voice in my head to scream, “Come up with something. Say anything. Don’t let her walk out without saying something.”

I stood by my table, saying nothing. The trainer walked by and suggested that I put my tongue back in my mouth.

“As a Support Rep, you’ll have your chance. Just don’t come on too strong.”

He was right. My position called for daily conversations with her. I phoned her every day, even when I had no business to discuss.

We became friends. We were each other’s ‘plus one’ at weddings.

She called me after dates to tell me how they had gone and what was wrong with each.

“He wore Top-Siders. I hate Top-Siders. He wanted to go bowling. I hate bowling. It was a first date, and we went to see a movie. You never see a movie on the first date.”

I listened. I consoled. I prayed that one day we would go out on a date.

To be clear, we went out, but as friends. Walking around with a woman you have a maddening crush on as friends is the hardest thing one can ever do.

Oh, I tried. She’d ask if I wanted to go out and I would always say, “Alone?”

When the girl you love is friendly with half of the New Jersey phone directory and you are nothing more than one of the many she wants to get together with, your popularity rises to the same level of somebody battling the coronavirus.

She was my first true love. I later learned that every girl I dated was compared to her. She was a stylish woman with a bold sense of fashion, like a queen with flowing robes and gowns so how could I be with someone with less concern about her appearance.

But her style was only a part of it. Besides her outward beauty, she was always ready with a kind word and criticism was not a part of her vocabulary. She would ask for nothing and offer help whenever asked. She knew my strengths and my weaknesses. We laughed at the same jokes.

My first true love and I finally dated. It was ten years and fifteen hundred miles later, but it happened. Everything about it was right. Being the best friend for your lover before becoming her lover can be one of the best things you can do. We knew each other better than anyone; we understood how the other did things, and because of that we had fewer negative experiences towards how we behaved.

And that’s more than awesome. Most people I know broke up because they found they don’t have as many things in common as they thought. Sometimes they broke up because of boredom with each other after just a few weeks, since they were different people with different interests.

Not us. We knew each other. We cared about each other. One of us wanted to scream from the roof of a tall building, “She’s in love with me. She loves me.” But I fear heights, there are few tall buildings in Boca Raton, and I was most afraid of how she might correct me and tell people we mildly tolerate each other.

After a few months, I broke it off. It’s complicated. In a life filled with many decisions with limited logic, this trumps them all.

Since breaking up with my first and what looks like my only love, my life has taken a turn for the worse.

I married an abusive woman who cost me multiple jobs and after the divorce ignored the co-parenting agreement by keeping our children away from me.

I hurt the woman I loved. I know I loved her because as I sit here today, I still think about her. I sneak peeks at her Facebook page every few months and she still looks as exquisite as she did in that green pants suit.

The best love relationship I had was with my first true love where she was my best friend. We had a lot in common, but we had fun more than anything. Besides, we also loved each other.

For me, I pray for two things every night:

Reconciling with my two sons and strength. I want to be strong enough to one day reach out to my first (and only) real love and ask if we can go out alone.