Sometimes I worry about myself and I find myself wondering about one particular friend on my flist. He's posted only 39 entries in two years, yet I keep him on. Why? He may just be my one remaining connection to my past, a pivotal part of my life journey where it forked and I took the other side. He may, in fact, be the missing Brandon that I have not spoken to or seen in eight years. I'm by no means sure, positive, or even somewhat sure. But he's so close to the Brandon I remember, that he just may be. Signs? Birthdate is eerily close to Brandon's as is location. His poetry and writings smack of the same "ruiner-esque" prose that I used to receive daily. He seems morose, and brilliant...and sadly, because I want him to be.

So have I ever tried to find out if it is he? Not really, although I did comment once saying "you wouldn't perhaps happen to be ruiner, would you?" meaning "Did you used to be online going by the name ruiner?" To which he misunderstood and replied that nothing was ruined. So I think, perhaps it's not him. And I have gone to the yahoo profile and have seen that he lists his name as something other than Brandon, and the picture doesn't match. But how many of us lie on those things?

But every now and then he pops up on my friends' list with a cryptic entry and I begin to wonder again. Sometimes I wonder if his messages are cryptic conversations to me, sometimes I think I'm insane. But perhaps he is trying to grab the attention of someone lost in his past too, and if for nothing else, that alone will keep him on my list.
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I don't often talk about my past with Brandon, mainly because it broke my heart. He was my first true love, my first intimate partner, and my first Scot. He was a beautiful person, inside and out, but he thought he was shit. I felt he was my soulmate. I loved him with more emotion than I've ever been able to give anyone. To this day, I know that I will never love anyone the way that I loved him, it's just not possible. We separated physically one summer so that he could go work a job with a road crew, but still were in contact constantly until one horrible night when he called me to confess his indiscretions and to break it off between us. I can not express the pain that followed, nor the pain of hearing of him talk about a new girlfriend a year later. He always said that losing me was the worst thing he'd ever done, but at that point he was half a country away from me, and neither of us could change things. I lost track of him after that...I think he wanted to shake free of everything.

A year later while in my cross-country excursion with jupitergirl, we were at a HORDE concert in Portland and I thought I saw Brandon. The flutter was back, the flip-flops in the stomach. It was so loud, and I was so freaked. jupitergirl went over to him and tried to yell/ask if he was Brandon. I don't remember the response exactly but I kind of recall him being confused. I never found out. I wish I had.

Over the years, I have tried to track him down with people searches, never quite finding him. Whenever I start to think about him a lot, I end up pulling out all of his letters to me, and reading each one. He really was a beautiful person.

You just never get over your first love.

Tags: flist love, writing
Feeling: nostalgic