Great Detail Challenge Meme
Day 02 – Your first love, in great detail

I was going to write this about Geof. But the more I wrote the more I realized I didn't want to do that. It just didn't fit. And yes, I loved Geoff, but the whole relationship was filled with screaming and jealousy and arguing. It wasn't what I thought love would be. I had always thought love would be effortless. My relationship with Geoff was not effortless. It was the exact opposite. And so I tried thinking back to what in my life had been effortless. Should I take a page out of Lauren's book and write about my love for one of my cats? No. Not only was that copy catting, it was also just not my style. I love my catses, but none of them were my first love. No, when I think of effortless love, there is only one possible creature that could fill that role.



Ben was the first time I loved someone who did not live under the same roof as me. We met (briefly) in sixth grade beginning orchestra. We were both signed up to play the violin, but when instruments arrived, he was accidentally sent a viola so he switched classes and we didn't really speak much until the next semester.

Our middle school had a festival for each grade level. Sixth grade got a mini-Ren Faire, seventh a "multi-cultural" festival, and eight grade a civil war-ish shindig. They'd all be on different days and we could dress up. It was super fun. For my sixth grade Ren Faire I wore one of those stereotypical pointy cone hats and a fugly ass burgundy dress borrowed from my older next door neighbor. The hat didn't really want to stay on my head, so by the time lunch period had rolled around I took it off to eat "ye olde lunch meate." After I finished picking at my food (I'm a picky eater and themed cafeteria food sucks balls) I put my horrible hat back on. Suddenly this weird kid in a paper bag (he was supposed to be a peasant) sidles up to me and starts worshipping me as a cone head. I laugh so hard my hat slips and I take it off to readjust it. He snarls at me. I put it on. He bows. I take it off. He snarls. Rinse, wash, and repeat. I couldn't stop laughing.

We hung out a bit outside of school, and quite a lot in school (we were both in the GT program and had a lot of classes together). By the time the summer after seventh grade rolled around, we were going to the movies together once a week and were attached at the hip. In eighth grade I was mistakenly assigned to boys' PE and we cackled like psychos. He took me to church and we sang in the choir and went on wee little choir tours together. We shared shirts. It was always "Ben and Megan" or "Megan and Ben." We went together better than peanut butter and jelly. During the summer I would call him because I couldn't remember how to tell if water was boiling, and we'd end up eating the same thing for lunch and sit on the phone for hours talking while we watched the same show on tv in different houses.

In ninth grade, we started seeing each other less. High school meant fewer classes together because suddenly the GT kids weren't all clustered together anymore. Now we had to mix with other kids. I remember at one point, sometime between boyfriends for me, we went to see a movie. Nothing special about it. It was just a movie like we always did. We met at the mall and we got Chik-fil-a and hid it in my purse and snuck it in. We ate our food and then settled down to watch the movie, just the same way we always did, with my head on his shoulder and his arm on mine, legs touching. You could have mistaken us for a couple, but we weren't. He was just my Ben. My best friend. And sitting there in the dark, right before my whole life imploded, I thought to myself, 'This is perfect. I could live with this forever. Even if I never get married and never get what I want, I can live as long as I have Ben and the dark and a movie playing.'

A few weeks later, my dad died.

Time passed. My wounds stayed open despite my best efforts at ignoring them. I dated more guys, Ben tried growing dreadlocks. We ate lunch together and went to church together but we saw less and less of each other as we each meshed into new groups of friends-different groups of friends.

Then, the killing blow.

Ben stopped eating meat. I thought he had an eating disorder; he was just vegetarian. Eventually, he cut out all animal products from his diet. We had a lot of "discussions" about the morality of eating meat. About my continued love for steak and chicken nuggets and fried fish. About the leather in my shoes and my ability to eat animals that were cute.

We graduated. I stayed home and he went away. He went to Austin to attend UT. Austin is a really liberal city and I fucking hate it. I hate it because as soon as he got there, he fell in love with it. He fell in love with the public transportation and vegan restaurants. He fell in love with his school and he fell in love with his classes. And then he met other people who shared his views. And we slowly stopped talking so much. A year passed. I called him to tell him happy birthday. He seemed surprised I called. He hadn't expected it. He hadn't called me on my birthday nine days earlier. I had written it off as him being too busy. But this one phone call broke something. We were totally missing all of the camaraderie we had once had. Our conversation was stilted and awkward. We hung up quickly.

And that was the day I realized I'd lost my first love without ever realizing I'd had him.

It wasn't a romantic love. I didn't think we'd ever get married, and neither of us ever had the desire to date one another. But I loved him just the same. It was weird, knowing that I had lost something when it had actually been fading away slowly over time. It hurt a lot. It still hurts. The adage is true: you just don't forget your first love. You carry it with you. Even if it fades away, it will always be there and it will be the scale against which you measure all your other loves in your life. And that's what Ben was and still is to me. My scale. The one person who could always keep me measured and balanced.


_{Day 01 – Introduce yourself
Day 03 – Your parents, in great detail
Day 04 – What you ate today, in great detail
Day 05 – Your definition of love, in great detail
Day 06 – Your day, in great detail
Day 07 – Your best friend, in great detail
Day 08 – A moment, in great detail
Day 09 – Your beliefs, in great detail
Day 10 – What you wore today, in great detail
Day 11 – Your siblings, in great detail
Day 12 – What’s in your bag, in great detail
Day 13 – This week, in great detail
Day 14 – What you wore today, in great detail
Day 15 – Your dreams, in great detail
Day 16 – Your first kiss, in great detail
Day 17 – Your favorite memory, in great detail
Day 18 – Your favorite birthday, in great detail
Day 19 – Something you regret, in great detail
Day 20 – This month, in great detail
Day 21 – Another moment, in great detail
Day 22 – Something that upsets you, in great detail
Day 23 – Something that makes you feel better, in great detail
Day 24 – Something that makes you cry, in great detail
Day 25 – A first, in great detail
Day 26 – Your fears, in great detail
Day 27 – Your favorite place, in great detail
Day 28 – Something that you miss, in great detail
Day 29 – Your aspirations, in great detail
Day 30 – One last moment, in great detail}