Here's To All The Girls Who Broke My Heart

They all left a print, and I haven't ever forgot.

I've been reading a lot about love on here. It's a powerful feeling, so powerful people write about loves that are decades old, so memorable people can remember words spoken years ago...loves that have left scars so deep and easily opened. that the blood has never dried, loves that today engulf a persons life, and prompt the most beautiful words, or force tormented poems from deep within. This has made me think about my life, my loves, not summer flings ,or two week long lust binges, but girls and women who moved and broke my heart,  women and girls I've loved. As I looked back, I realized, the number of females that I cried for, was not as many as I thought.

 

 

Like..562-2610. I wish somehow I could go back in time, or check the Bucyrus Telephone directory from 1958. Because for the life of me, I swear that was Carole Houles number, Carole was my first love..my puppy love. It took me an hour, with the phone in my hand, to make that first phone call to ask her out. 562-2610, I'd give anything to find out. Carole was French Canadian, jet black hair, dark eyes, high cheeks bones, and with the beauty of an Egyptian Princess. But, I lost out to Danny Barlow, a semi hood, who walked cool, talked cool, and eventually married her. Carole and I were dance partners at every dance contest we could find. We always won first or second prize. It usually ended up with me and Carole against Ron Pennsinger and Vicki Howard. I don't think Carole knew how much I loved her.

 

 

For a while everyone thought we were boyfriend and girlfriend. But, I never said to her the words "I love you." I was afraid. By the time I thought I was ready to tell her, she started seeing Danny. I remember going home after dances, and just crying as I walked. When I left for the service I lost track of her. I still run a Google search for her. That was my first taste of heart break. God, I'll never forget the hurt. I never felt anything like it.

 

But, that opened the door for Janet Gregg to take my heart. I fell so in love with her. The night she gave me her ring on the front porch of her house had to be one of the great love moments ever. It also turned into the night of the worse young love blunders of my life. On the way home, floating on a low cloud of love, clutching her ring, singing, flipping it up in the air, catching it, spinning and swirling. I tossed it up, and it bounced off my jacket sleeve, and fell in about two feet of freshly fallen snow. I looked forever, I sunk my hands into the snow until it felt they would shatter from the cold. I lost her ring...I also lost her. It wasn't because I lost her ring. She just fell in love with a Junior who had a car. I remember having to bury my face in my pillow so my brother wouldn't hear me sobbing. Jesus, it hurt so much.

 

My next love was a complex love that had so many emotions. I felt love, but also hate. I couldn't imagine life without her. She was a double for a young Liz Taylor. Everyone said the same thing, She even had the violet eyes. She told me she loved me, but she had feelings for Carl Phalor, too. She lived a about ten miles outside of town, and was desperately poor...out house poor, pot belly stove poor, no running water poor. But, Oh God, I loved her. Sometime's I would drive out to see her, only to find her and Carl making out in his car. I wasn't used to that kind of pain. I would rather have someone beat me with a ball bat, than feel that kind of pain. It came down to where she had to make a choice. The night she told me I was too wild and didn't know what I wanted, so she was going with Carl, I actually thought about killing myself on the dark country road back to town. I was crying so hard I couldn't see the road, and the feeling in my heart was unlike the other broken hearts I'd felt.

 

I didn't think I'd ever heal from that wound, but eventually I did. Many years passed before I fell in love, again...Really fell. I was 23, in Calif, in a house of someone called Ronway. I was walking into the kitchen, and this beautiful animal, with waist length silky brown hair, and the most breathtaking face, brushed by me. Our eyes met, and it was over. This was the woman I'd been looking for my whole life. We started talking, and she had this incredible laugh that lit up the room. It was the beginning of a love that lasted almost five years. It was an insane love, filled with the highest ecstasy, and the most horrific moments a relationship can have. Still, it was taken for granted we would eventually marry. How could love be like this ? She was the first free spirited person I'd ever met.  

 

She knew all of Ken Kesey's friends, the famous beat and hippy writer. But, I was from a small town in the mid west. I wasn't prepared for the sincere kind of free spirit she had. I got into drugs...heavy. I stole from her. She was unfaithful, but we remained together. We both spent our love laughing, crying, hating, loving. It was totally crazy. We could neither one of us leave the other. She would have sex with her old boyfriend, I would steal from where she worked. She bought me a new Triumph SpitFire Convertible to come back to Ohio and get a job and an apartment. I rented it out for drugs. I would go back to Calif, she would take me in, she would be unfaithful, again..and so it went for years. Yet, I knew she loved me, and she knew I loved her. The last time I saw her she had driven all the way from Calif to Ohio. We went to Canada to see a friend who fled the war, we drove to Florida to see the ocean.

 

I think she was waiting on me to ask her to marry me, but, at that moment, after all the years of us hurting each other, I just stood there and watched her drive a way. During those years we both cried until there was no more tears to cry. She told me she cried non-stop through three states. Even though she left the way she did, I always thought I would see her, again...but we never did. Two years later I fell in love with Sue, and Baa married a Berkeley Professor.

 

 

Now, it's like looking at old black and white movie reels, turning the pages of a book you've read, but have forgotten the ending. Baa heard I was dying last year. Even after thirty five years she still is bitter, even though she has two beautiful young prodigies who played on David Letterman and Jay Leno's show. I wrote "Last Dance with a Memory" for her, because we crushed each other's hearts, and now I could no longer cry any more, nor see her cry, again.

 

 

To all of you who showed me the pain of a broken heart, I thank you. You led me to Sue. All the pain and emptiness was part of the path that led me here. I also am sorry for my hurting you. We were young, we did and said what youthful hearts do and say. When I think of you now, I understand. I hope you remember me with the same compassion, and forgiveness I will always keep for you.

 

 

 

© 2007 Rain

 

Reviews

[Yvonne Heidt]

I believe that I read this before, however - it still touched my heart in a way that only your memories can. It seems as if there is always time to make something up to someone and then they're gone and you can't possibly. Rain, your stories always touch me, but I love how at the end you end up with Sue.

We were young, we did and said what youthful hearts do and say...

This is a brilliant line and boy did it stir some memories for me. I said things to people that I can never take back - and I would never in a million years, say today.

Thank you for sharing this wonderful story with us, again.

[Better Off]

Heroin addiction and stealing is a deal breaker. This is not a normal 'youthful heart' scenario. Lucky she got away.

[Dezaraye]

I think that the last time I read this, I posted Rascal Flatt's song, "Bless the Broken Road" because that's what it reminded me of.

I love this nostalgia and looking back. The life lessons are so much easier to see looking back than they are in the moment. The pain of a broken heart is something that only time can heal if we let it. But, tell that to someone who's hurting right now, and they'll never believe it. Life is funny that way.

[JC Fox]

Oh don't even get me started on all the love on here! Another great piece

[Chloe..Across the Unive..]

I remember this one.. didn't you have it up before the great delete?
I know i love it .. we all have these memories .. sounds like you have many ..and bet you broke a few hearts too!
Great writing ..as always!

Chloe
xoxo

[None]

As I'm reading this, "When a Man Loves a Woman," by Percy Sledge was on the radio and seemed to be a wonderful back drop to your lovely story. I always enjoy hearing about love and this is beautiful how you wrote it from your heart. I really feel that if anyone is the right one for us they would never intentially hurt us. I'm so happy you found Sue. What a great ending to your honest story.

[Texas Ink]

The one about you and carole really strikes home man, "I remember going home after dances, and just crying as I walked" I have felt THAT very emotion, not in your circumstances but THAT emotion, something about love that could've been thats the worst especially when your close to someone and friends. Now I always take chances even if it means humiliation, at least I can bare humiliation, its regreat that I will always regreat. Your life's experiences melded nicely into symbols we call english, nicely done sir.

[Ani Ashford]

This is a wonderful piece, Rain. Oh, I was feeling very much like the pages of my yearbook were being flipped when reading your words. There were boys and men who have been part of my life with such intensity, but strangely, they never felt the same - except for perhaps one. I was thinking of him this week. He died in a tragic accident. No going back... The smell of gardenias from proms or mums from homecoming corsages always jog my memories. Thanks. :)

[THE BLACK SEAL]

ya know this is really quite well written and i really felt as fif i was standing next to you watching with you as she drove away. it was very moving.. i am glad to call you my friend

[Robert Luna]

I remember this piece. I loved the first time I read it and it is even better the second time as I think I read new things in it I might have missed before. You are always such an spiritually inspirational writer my friend. I think I have my soul spoken to more by your words than anyone else well other then my own considering they come from my soul. LOL I love the way you took us through the stages of your life and introduced us to those that helped shape you into the person we all know and love now. I think your words speak of life and the way we think it will be only to find destiny has a plan of it's own we must follow.


Great Job!!!!!