Monday, August 31, 2009

Old haunts

For my longest relationship before Daddy Fuss, we met on this traveling music tour we both participated in (we sang and performed a minimum of twice a day at churches, schools, nursing homes and the like. It was a ministry opportunity and it was a very interesting experience for me from a social and religious perspective). It was 11 years ago, so I don't remember the whole speech they gave, but it was 31 kids (ages 14-18), for 33 days in 25 states. We spent a lot of time on a tour bus and we all got to know each other really well in that environment and I kept in touch with a lot of them for the next couple of years.

We weren't supposed to have romances on tour, but there were several couples who hooked up during our time, and I was part of one. I was part of THE couple of the tour - the only one that lasted and the one everyone else sort of thought of as the "super couple" (which was probably part of the reason the leaders hated me - my boyfriend was one of their pets and I was distracting him or something). But there were others. Specifically, Jenny and Ben and Scott and Leslie. (although at the beginning of the tour it seemed like Scott was going to get with Anna - the weird things you remember 11 years later). I remember the heady feeling of that - having the best looking most popular guy falling in love with me, having people look up to me, etc. I think that might have been part of my motivation for being with him.

Anyhow, said boyfriend and I stayed together for two and a half years after that. We even got engaged for about 24 hours (before my now-husband talked me out of getting engaged so young). I would classify him as my first real love, looking back. But I have no wistful memories of him, or anything. Sure, there were good times, but there were also a lot of bad and it didn't end in a good way, so it's sort of like when it ended it was "good riddance" and then it was over.

I've gone a long time without giving him more than a passing thought, but lately, he's come up more and more. It's weird, because I don't have to explain my history with him to most of my friends, because they were there (most of my friends have been around for a very long time) when it was happening, but my friend J, she's much newer to my life and when I was telling a story that was loosely related to him, I had to explain him a few weeks ago, etc., etc.

There was something else that brought him up a few months ago, too - I can't remember.

Anyhow, I was recently contacted by one of the girls from our tour group on Facebook. I had already made contact with 2 of my closest friends from tour, since they have distinctive names and I was able to easily find them with a basic search. But Cori had pulled out her old scrapbook and is going through the list she has trying to find everybody so we can somehow all reconnect. I've been helping her find people, and we've found about 10 of the 31 in the last 3 weeks.

She found my ex in her searches and has friended him on FB. I am not friending him. I don't want contact with him and I don't think my husband would be comfortable with it any more than I would. But there is a small part of me that would love for him to find me - to see how happy I am with my amazing husband and my gorgeous daughter. I suppose it's that whole "I'm doing fine without you" mentality, regardless of whether or not I want anything to do with him at this point in my life.

I have no desire to rekindle a friendship with him - I'm not even sure I'm past the point where I've forgiven him for the things he did to me when we were together, and that is something that God and I need to work on. But part of me is worried about it.

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