Dear Matt.
I still have the gift you gave me nearly thirty years ago. It's still in use and sits on my dressing table containing spare buttons and brooches. It
always reminds me of you.
I don’t expect you even bought it at the tender age of 7, a
present I suspect that was purchased by your mother for me one Christmas!
Nonetheless, I treasure it as much now, as I did back then.
You were my first love and my first heartbreak. At an early
age, You taught me so much about how cruel the emotions concerning the heart
can be.
I remember there were the three of us. You, me and Toby. I
remember always laughing and being so happy when I was with you both at school.
At breaktime we played
together and in the classroom, we copied each other’s work! I think sometimes
we may have been a distraction to the other children in class for bursting out
with snorts of giggles. But I didn’t care, I was happy to be with my friends and nothing else really mattered.
I missed my first terms of school due to illness;. Consequently
I missed out on learning important ‘social skills’ with my peers, I always found it hard to establish a friendship with other children. However, when I was
eventually well enough to join school properly, you and Toby took me under your wings and
we looked out for each other.
For a while it was all good, but then shortly before I was told
I was to move up to Juniors ((I was kept a term behind from my
peers) (you and
toby were a year below me so didn’t move up til the following year. A new girl
joined our class, I don’t remember her name, but she came to join our little
threesome. You and Toby happily accepted her. However, I was so jealous. I tried
to like her, I think deep down I did, but I felt threatened by her, it seemed
like she was taking you away from me. You were of course oblivious to my feelings. How
could you know?! We were 7-8 years old, I didn’t even understand myself all
those emotions running around inside me.
But it got worse. –Oneday I went to school just like every
other day, I sat down at our table next to you, but then the teacher told me I
was to go over to the junior class in Mrs Topleys.
MY whole world came crashing down on me. I wanted to cry, but I
was aware of not wanting to make a scene and so I quietly picked up my pencil case, packed
my satchel and walked alone across the playground to the ‘huts’ where mrs
Topley taught. I remember how I stood at the front of my new classroom and was introduced by the teacher to all the other kids. It was a bigger class than what i was accustomed to and it scared me. I was guided to a seat, everyone already knew each other and seemed to understand the lesson that we were being taught. I however, didn't and I sat in silence fighting back the tears once more, pretending I understood the mass of numbers that were being written on the blackboard.
But in the darkness, there was light that morning. I was kindly
told that under 'special circumstances' I would be allowed to join you at breaktime in the infant playground to see you. I was happy once again , my heart was bursting with excitement and I
looked forward to our break to arrive. Eventually after what seemed eternity,
we were dismissed and I ran along the path behind the main building to find you
both.
However, the reception I got from you had lain heavily in my heart for years afterwards.
However, the reception I got from you had lain heavily in my heart for years afterwards.
I was expecting a grand reunion, instead I got ignored. You and
Toby were playing with your new ‘girlfriend’, I hung around trying to muscle my
way into your affections once again until one of you told me to go away. ‘We don’t
want you anymore’ you said. I will never forget those cruel harsh words. They
were like a kick in the stomach and my heart broke in smithereens right there,
right then.
I stood in total shock.
I didn’t know where to turn and as I watched you all run off, I had no choice but
to turn back. That breaktime I never played, I never spoke to a soul. I just walked
behind the buildings and wept tears of hurt and anguish until the bell rang to do back indoors again. At the tender age of 7, this was to be my first
experience of rejection in love. To this day I still claim it was my worst ever day
at school.
To add insult to injury, many weeks later, I remember trying to
make friends with your older sister, but she punched me in the stomach!
Fast forward thirty years, I’m all over it now! However it took
me many years, even at secondary school where our paths crossed once again, I
was unable to look you in the eye, even though I still carried a flame for you!
I desperately wanted to reach out my hand of friendship again, but for fear of rejection
I never did.
I think if I look back, I always held a 'distant' emotionally cool dispositon with schoolfriends. I was forever in fear of going into school oneday and eveyone would be against me.
I was however able to put aside childhood issues with your
sister years later when we were working together as chambermaids and we became
good buddies for a while.
These days, I am confident, I am secure in my own identity and I am able to give my love unromatically and otherwise freely to anyone and everyone without living in fear of rejection.
I am glad to be friends with you once again. I still carry a little flame for you, I think I always will!
You are kind and sensitive and funny. Your sense of irony is truly magnificent! You never fail to make me laugh.
And now, when I think back on that fateful day when you and Toby broke my
heart, I see it as a lesson of love and life. It taught me that we cant always have the things that we think we want in life and although the road to recovery from a wounded heart and bruised pride can be a tough one, its better to have loved and lost than to have never loved before. I have fond memories of our
time we spent together albeit brief in our childhood episode and I thank you for them.
With love, Melissa x
