THE ex-boyfriend...

I think every woman has one.  You know--THE ex-boyfriend.  The first one you really loved, and the first one who broke your heart.  The one who kindly provided you with most of the emotional baggage that you carry into every relationship that follows.

Mine was Chris Johnson.  I really loved him, which sounds stupid when you consider we were 17 when we started dating.  But I honestly did love him.  Emotions like that don't necessarily have to involve maturity.  I certainly didn't love him any more by the time our relationship ended.  Some of his actions quite effectively killed that.  But when things were good, well, we had a lot of fun together and I was happy.

His family moved away from Nephi quite some time ago, and I've often wondered what became of him.  Chris Johnson is a common name, but I have been looking for him on Facebook.  Kind of wanting closure on a drama-filled, heart wrenching period of my life, you know?  Well, guess what?  I found his mother on Facebook a few days ago.  Now I know.

Chris is in the U.S. Army.  He's actually a Green Beret.  He is living in Tennessee with his wife and 3 daughters, and has another on the way.  He's served several tours of duty in Afghanistan.  He's done all right for himself.

Part of me is happy for him.

Most of me wishes that something really bad had happened to him as a sort of karmic payback for the things he's done.  Part of me wishes that he had ended up as damaged as I did because of our time together.

It's really funny, because I honestly thought I was past all of that.  I thought that 13 years was enough time for me to hear about him and not feel sick to my stomach.  I thought I wouldn't care any more.

See, the problem with falling in love when you're that young is that you are still in your formative years--so incredibly young and impressionable.  The smallest action in the world can have lasting consequences because those are the years when each and every decision can directly influence the rest of your life.

Then again, maybe age has nothing to do with it.  Maybe it happens every time you fall in love.  Maybe you just have to enter every relationship with an eye to damage control, and when you're 17 years old you haven't learned to do that yet.

Maybe I ought to be getting more sleep.

Anyway, now I know what he's done with his life.  I wonder if he is ever curious about what happened to me.  I'd like to think that deep down he really loved me.  And I can always hope that I left a lasting impression on him as well, good or bad!