A History of Summer, Love, and Heartbreak

By Bub 

My first kiss was in the summer. Well, not my FIRST kiss - that was in the fall of my 7th grade year at a friend's birthday party when her mom's drunk 40-something friend decided to join our game of spin the bottle and I 'won'. She didn't have all her teeth, and probably had hepatitis, but still, it was magical. Yet I don't count that as my first kiss since it was part of a game, much in the same way I don't consider myself a millionaire because of the time I managed as banker to steal the large majority of money from the Monopoly reserve undetected. The first real kiss I had was the following summer in Sydney, Australia. I was on a three week trip to Oz as a 'student ambassador', a program I assume run by the people that devised the prestigious 'Who's Who' book catalog. A beautiful girl, South Carolinian, inexplicably showed interest in me despite my entire wardrobe consisting of commemorative 2Pac t-shirts and SouthPole jean shorts that I wore below my crotch. It looked sexy on 2Pac, but in retrospect it must've looked very sad on an over-weight, white, 13 year old with braces hailing from the general vicinity of where Ronald Reagan grew up. It happened in my hotel room, and I think it started by me saying something like, 'do you want to make out?', and her dispassionately consenting. She was nice, but she broke up with me not long after I refused to take my t-shirt off while our group went snorkeling.

I fell in love for the first time in the summer. Well, I fell in love earlier in the year actually, with a girl new to our school that started dating one of my friends, someone who before this had happened I thought girls found physically repulsive. To me, he was a feminine-looking, chubby albino. But, she went for him, she actually pursued him. Naturally, this made me think that I would have a chance with her, because while I was feminine-looking and chubby, I did have the capacity to tan in the summer. Their sophomore relationship ran its course, and I moved in. Not in a particularly smart way - as a best friend. This is a lesson I still haven't learned - being a best friend doesn't necessarily induce a romantic relationship. To me, it does. I would probably date Glenn if he was really persistent, even though I am not physically attracted to men. But this girl was a best friend through the rest of my high school years, me dottering about while she dated most of my social circle, then relaying her relationship details to me as I cried inside. She eventually transfered to Catholic school, so at least I didn't have to be around the people she was sleeping with. Finally the summer after I graduated from high school, I got up the courage to take action - to tell her I loved her, and that I didn't love hearing her funny story about her head banging into a bell while she was having sex with a friend of mine. It was the night before she was leaving for vacation and I knew she would be home with her friend that was accompanying her and her family on the trip. Her bedroom was on the second floor, and there was a window that faced out over the garage. I climbed to the roof of her garage, with my $30 pawn store acoustic guitar, and began playing 'Black' by Pearl Jam next to her window. I could see them both look confused for the first couple of bars, and then realize the music was coming from outside. She opened her window, I sang the song. I said, 'I love you', and then we kissed for the first time.

We dated for about a year until I found out that she was secretly dating a boy from her high school for the entire length of our relationship. I should've caught on when she took me to a coffee shop with her 'best friend' and made me sit in the back seat; or when she told me she was going to her prom with her 'best friend' and not me because they didn't allow non-Catholics into her school. But, I was in love, so I believed it, until an ex-friend of hers disclosed the true nature of their relationship at an outdoor music festival. I had my first heartbreak in summer.

I met my wife in the summer. I remember dazzling her with an acoustic rendition of 'Back That Azz Up' at an outdoor party, and then kissing her while we laid in the middle of a country road gazing at stars. We were married in the summer. She was eight months pregnant, we went to a judge's office with my grandparents as witnesses, and then 'honeymooned' with brunch at an Amish restaurant. We had a 'real' wedding ceremony the following summer, one with all our friends and family, where I wrote the vows - which to this day is the piece of writing I am proudest of (you can read it here). That night I fell asleep on the bottom bunk in a bedroom of the cabin where the reception was held, and my friend and a liason used the top bunk for a rendezvous, locking out my wife on our wedding night. We shared many wonderful summers together after that however. We even moved to the other side of the world so we could squeeze in an extra summer into our year. But, this summer is ending in heartbreak also, as I scramble to figure out how to move forward as a single dad. It is hard envisioning future summers - future loves, and first kisses, future heartbreaks as well. But as long as there is a summer, I will stand ashamedly fully-clothed next to a beach; I will make hackey romantic gestures via song; I will embarrass myself in a myriad of social situations; and I will do my best to love.