The Sea of Love

My very first real boyfriend was a goalie. I'll call him "Larry" to protect the innocent - but he was also known as "Sieve" to many of his team-mates and some of the other player's dads (goalies are not well-loved when they aren't very good). He was a couple of years older than me and had already dated several of my sister's friends when he moved on to me, for inexplicable reasons. As this was the pre-cell phone era, a lot of relationships seemed to consist of getting together with a trusted friend and calling the home of the person you liked, then hanging up when their mom answered. Good times. I can't really say I liked him all that much - he was kind of needy and was uncomfortably close to his mother. Still it was a badge of some sort to date a hockey player and so my opinion of myself rose exponentially for a short period until he decided he was in love with my best friend. I really couldn't blame him because given the choice I would have picked her too. While deep in my heart I was glad to be rid of him and his whiny ways - I was irritated by the fact he waited until just before Christmas to pull the plug and thus the present I fully expected to get went to her and not me. I am ashamed to say Lionel Ritchie was actually popular at the time and I listened to "Sail On" - which I gather he wrote about his divorce - on my record player about ten thousand times, sobbing at the one who got away. I would think of him wistfully sometimes after the fact - then come to my senses and remember on top of everything else he wasn't that bright. Still, the heart wants what the heart wants - any anchor in a storm and something resembling, but not, love.