One day...

One day, you'll like someone so much they'll rip right through you. This is what I'm thinking as I listen to one of my friends joke how she doesn't like anyone and how tough she is. But one day... someone will gut her and her eyes wide open she'll play back all the joking around about not ever falling in love or liking someone enough to stay.

I know this because I would say the same thing. I swore I'd never fall in love and that there wasn't anyone in the world I would ever like. I was gutted. Gutted by the realization when I first fell head over heels for him. My first love... he tore right through me like a hot knife running through butter in the summertime. I was never the same. There were other loves after. But my heart forever guarded against the torment that first love caused me. Even after 20 years I still think of how it felt to be in love. Not with him. I don't care about him. But that first love, that feeling, the first time you have it... there will never be anything like it ever again in your entire life.

I guess that's why I am sad all the time. The doctor says I look sad and I have a sad face. I am sad. I will never have those days back. I will never have that love back. I will never have that feeling back, or a chance to ever relive those first-time experiences. And as time passes by, my sadness grows and it encapsulates me in a cocoon I'll never emerge from.

One day I'll be a ghost and I'll roam the Earth looking for young people going through these first-time experiences and I'll share them even though they are not aware of my presence. And perhaps, watching them live in a way I never could might bring me solace, some glimmer of joy. Perhaps I might smile again...