28 Years Later: Remembering My First Love

Today has been 28 years.

Twenty-eight years since we lost Chad.

If you’ve read Summer Love Autumn Goodbye, you know his name. You know pieces of his story. But there’s something I don’t think everyone realizes when they read that book.

Chad wasn’t just a character.

He was a very real person in my life.

And in a lot of ways, he had a huge part in making me the person I am today.

I was a child when we lost him. It was six days before I started high school, and I don’t think there’s any possible way I could have understood then how much that loss was going to affect the rest of my life. I was already standing on the edge of this massive change—leaving behind the school and the life I’d known and walking into a completely new world where I barely knew anyone. Then, six days before I was supposed to take that step, we lost Chad.

Losing Chad messed me up for a long time. A really long time. And if I’m being completely truthful, there are still days when I struggle with it. Grief is weird like that. Twenty-eight years sounds like such an incredibly long time, and yet there are memories that don’t feel anywhere near that far away.

I’ve spent a lot of time with those memories lately because I’ve written and rewritten his story. I’ve looked at that relationship through the eyes of the teenager who lived it and through the eyes of the adult I am now, and those two people don’t always see things the same way.

Looking back as an adult, I can admit the relationship wasn’t necessarily the best.

There were only three and a half years between us, which doesn’t sound like much when you’re an adult. Three years now? That’s nothing. I’m definitely not the same person I was three years ago, and I hope three years from now I can say the same thing, because we’re supposed to keep changing and growing. But when you’re a teenager, three years can feel like a lifetime. There’s a huge difference between where you are at different points in those years. Things I didn’t understand then are things I can look back at now and see very differently.

Growing up means being able to look back and acknowledge that.

But acknowledging it doesn’t erase what he meant to me.

It doesn’t erase what the relationship meant to the girl I was then.

We were together for just over a year. Again, as an adult, a year doesn’t necessarily sound like a long time. But when you’re a teenager? A year is forever. It’s an entire school year. It’s birthdays and holidays and seasons. It’s a massive piece of the life you’ve lived so far.

And when it’s your first love?

It feels even bigger.

Chad was my first love.

Nothing I understand now can change that. Nothing I’ve learned about relationships in the 28 years since can go back and change what I felt then. I loved him with the kind of love you have before you really understand how complicated love can be. Before you’ve had enough life experience to know that loving someone doesn’t automatically mean everything about a relationship is right or healthy or meant to last forever.

And maybe that’s one of the hardest things about looking back.

Two things can be true at the same time.

I can recognize things about our relationship now that teenage me couldn’t see.

And I can still love the memory of the person who meant everything to her.

I don’t have to rewrite my own history to acknowledge what I’ve learned since then. I don’t have to pretend the relationship was perfect because I lost him. But I also don’t have to minimize what he meant to me simply because, at my age now, I can see things differently.

He mattered.

He still matters.

And losing him changed me.

There are pieces of Chad woven throughout Summer Love Autumn Goodbye, but there are also pieces of the girl I was when I knew him. That’s probably why writing and rewriting that story has been so emotional for me. I’m not simply imagining how Marissa feels. There are moments when I’m reaching backward through decades and touching emotions I actually lived.

I’ve talked about Chapter 19 before and why it remains the hardest chapter I’ve ever written. I’ve written darker things since. I’ve tackled subjects that, on paper, should probably be much harder to write.

But they’re different.

With Chad, I’m remembering.

I’m remembering being young and believing certain things would last forever. I’m remembering what it felt like when they didn’t. I’m remembering the person I was before August 20 and the person I had to figure out how to become afterward.

Maybe that’s part of the reason Chad found his way into one of my books all these years later.

Writing is how I make sense of things.

It’s how I’ve always made sense of things.

And maybe putting pieces of Chad onto those pages was my way of making sure those pieces didn’t disappear.

Twenty-eight years later, life obviously looks nothing like it did then. I’ve grown up. I’ve changed. I’ve loved other people. I’ve built an entire life that teenage me couldn’t possibly have imagined. I’ve become a mother. I’ve written books. I’ve had experiences that changed me in a thousand other ways.

But becoming someone new doesn’t erase who you used to be.

And it doesn’t erase the people who helped make you that person.

So today, Chad, I’m remembering you.

I’m always remembering you, really.

Sometimes it’s a song. Sometimes it’s a random memory that comes out of nowhere. Sometimes it’s opening Summer Love Autumn Goodbye and finding pieces of a life that existed almost three decades ago sitting there on the page.

But today especially, I’m remembering.

Twenty-eight years.

It’s somehow both a lifetime ago and no time at all.

I’ll never forget you.

And I’ll never forget my first love. 🖤