Ah, yes, I remember it well.

I can remember, way back when I was 15, experiencing my first taste of love. Not the mum and dad kind of love or the brother and sister kind of love, not that kind that was always available and taken for granted, no, I mean the real thing. The quivery bowel kind of love that is both awful and beautiful and by far, in it's newness the most exquisite kind of love.
As we get older we get cynical and wary, we meet people we think we can love and we hold back a bit and wait to see if this person will be kind to our heart, if they deserve our emotions and time. Not so when we first fling ourselves into REAL love. REAL love gets our all, it gets our heart and our mind, our every waking moment and our life long memory.
I didn't have clue about boys, I had a brother that annoyed me, poor David, all sisters and not an ally to be found. I look back now and am not surprised that he has nothing to do with us, that he warns his women about us and makes them afraid to meet us ( he has been with his partner now forever, probably 20 years, I think she quite likes us but we can't be sure because he won't come to visit if we are all en mass) I had a dad who was just dad, good old dad, kind and hard working and consistent, fiercely protective of our mum, only ever showing any signs of temper is we were brazen enough to say 'Shut up' or roll our eyes at our mum. I knew boys at school but good grief is they weren't stupid creatures. I spent more time with the boys at school than the girls because the girls were mean and I wasn't cool or popular and I was painfully shy and naive so the boys were friendly. the girls weren't, the boys weren't at all ones to make a girls heart skip a bit so I didn't understand them at all.
So when I was 15 and I suddenly got a stomach flip feeling when I saw this boy at church, I was a bit baffled, just for a moment and then I realised that this was *IT* you know, I was in LOVE.
Oh he was so grown up, 2 years older than me and he could drive, he even had a car, one of his own and I would watch from afar as he would walk into church with a huge grin and my stomach would flip and I would die a little inside because he didn't grin at me.
I can't remember ( and what a puzzle that is, you think I would have that memory imprinted on my heart for ever!) when that changed and when smiley man started to smile at me but he did and that smile was the best smile in the world. He sang, did smiley man. He sang and he played any instrument he put his mind to and he was good at it. I would listen to him sing and you know just what THAT did to my 15 year old heart. Oh please don't be still, my heart.
Somehow, we started to sing together, wherever and whenever we could, we would sing, mostly at church because they had a piano and no parents shouting at us to be quiet. Before church and after church and in the week when there wasn't church, we would sing and sometimes, smiley man would COME TO MY HOUSE!  We formed a group, as you do, and there were 3 men and 2 girls and we practised a lot. I can remember those times when we would practise and sometimes he would touch my arm and life would be worth living.
One day, he came to the house and the others weren't there so ....oh sweet joy....he took me out in his car. ME! I know, me in his car and then, he kissed me. They say you remember your first kiss and I do.
My mum, when I got home was furious, she told him that he had let her down and she would not trust him again, she told me that I had let myself down ( ouch, painful!) and that from now on, that young man would not be allowed in her house. The rule was that dating was not allowed until I was 16, he knew that, I knew that and we had blown it. Oh the angst and the weeping that followed ( me, not him, he was all grown up and nearly 18, he was a man of the world) My life was ruined of course, he would never want anything to do with me every again HOW DOES THAT MAKE YOU FEEL MUM? My whole life ruined, for ever.
Except, as is the way of an 18 year old and a newly turned 16 year old, forbidden fruits are the sweetest and anyway I WAS 16 now and so she couldn't STOP ME. Except there wasn't anything to stop because apart from those few weeks of heavenly hand holding, a few lovely kisses that made me start to understand all that formerly vile birds and bees stuff, we soon learned that we were the best friends there ever could be and there didn't seem much point in going any further than that.
I remember a youth conference we went to, where I swear he sang to me, I knew he wasn't singing to his girlfriend because she was right there, near him and he was facing ME as he sang " It's only words" by the Bee Gees. He was such a smoothy that smiley man. Also, he had great arms.


So, he had girlfriends and I had boyfriends and we would tell each other how that was working for us and we'd sing. Boyfriends and girlfriends came and went and we still sang and saw each other, sometimes we wouldn't see each other for weeks and it didn't matter, suddenly there he was again or I would call him and we'd see each other and it was fine.
I met the first love for real and he met girls who kept him busy and happy and when I was 20, the first one I really loved and I broke up and I was so sad. Really sad, for real.
Smiley man was there, right there and he would come to the house where I lived as a nanny and he would sing, play the piano and he'd stay with me until fell asleep. Sometimes I got the idea that maybe he would be happy if we were more than friends but it didn't happen and he was, for real the best friend I ever had.
We wrote a song, smiley man and I, he wrote the music and I wrote the pain filled words and we even recorded 'Why must it be' in a recording studio, like actual stars.
He met someone and fell in love and even told me it was my fault for not agreeing to be his girlfriend, he would come over and tell me about her, he sang a song he wrote for her. Then she started to mind that he was my friend, bloody cheek! She started to demand that he have nothing to do with me and life got tough. Eventually she won and stupid woman got him to stay away, they married and I lost contact with him for a while, though his mum would tell me snippets and say how she liked me best. I saw him at his sisters wedding and he hadn't known I was coming, so his reaction was delightfully spontaneous and he was as happy to see me as I was to see him. I was married to the first one by then, I think, the first one didn't mind at all that smiley man and I were so thrilled to see each other after so long but I hear smiley man's unsmiling wife was not happy and he paid the price later.
He didn't stay with his unsmiling and unkind wife and the first one left me and suddenly there he was again, in a shiny car, with flowers, with help from his mum who found out where I was and told him. It was lovely to see him but I was sad and it had been so long and I don't think I even had any joy in me to show him. We lost touch and I moved here, there and everywhere and I thought of him sometimes.
Facebook is great, isn't it? I found him a few weeks ago and he sent me the link to his blog, I gave him mine ( I'll show you mine if you show me yours, right?) and so we have been able to catch up a bit. He reads my blog and he leaves comments and yesterday he told me to write a book.
This is for you smiley man...you start singing again and I'll write a book and then I'll show you mine if you show me yours. How's that for a deal?