Not a Love Story

I had my first kiss on a cold Saturday night just outside what I used to call home. It wasn't magical, it wasn't everything I expected it to be. He licked my face and I licked his and in that moment, that was everything. Now that I have kissed plenty of people, I can tell it was wrong. I didn't know back then. There were a lot of things I didn't know about when I was fifteen. 
I didn't know how to drive a car, I didn't know how to survive the loss of your parents or the people who mean the most to you, I didn't know how to earn my own money and spend it smartly, how to raise children and teach them everything my parents taught me and more. I didn't know what love was. I didn't know what it really truly had to be for it to last a lifetime.
I met the love of my life five times before I met the father of my children. I know the difference now. How naive of me to think the two had to be the same thing. 
Mad love creates an unhealthy environment for children. My mother loved my father like crazy and out of that marriage came two crazy children who knew how to love but didn't know how to survive without it. She would drink herself to sleep every night he failed to show up for her and never once questioned herself, never once tried to fix anything. I didn't use to think there was something wrong with her ways, I just wanted someone to love me like this one day.
And they did. They loved me so much that the mere act of caring for them almost killed me. I wasn't my dad. I couldn't tune out my feelings and turn my back to the person who would die for me. The boy who kissed me for the first time overdosed after he broke up with me. I didn't know what went wrong, one other thing to add to the list of things I didn't know about. All I knew is that he had to go and never come back. I was no good to him. He was the first love of my life to slip away, and the next four went for the similar reasons. 
One found a lover who loved him the way he loved me, one realised the lesbian thing wasn't for her, one's parents sent him off to a military college and the other passed away in a car crash. After all the heartbreak, my heart was too broken to ever love again. I thought it was over. I thought I had hit rock bottom and this was the feeling that drove my mother to alcoholism, the feeling that took her from us. I would not forgive my father for making her feel this way for years, until I found a way out of the hole. After that, a part of me was always mad at mom for leaving us so easily. She could have survived. If her baby girl could survive, so could she. I forgave my dad the day I held my daughter in my hands and knew that no man in the world would ever stop me from loving this child and only this child.
I met my husband on the day of my mother's funeral. I must have collapsed or something, because the last thing I remember before waking up in the hospital is crying at the funeral. Ash was the doctor who asked me if I knew where I was. After that day he took a special interest in me. Over the year, I found myself quite a lot in the hospital, what with the drinking and falling while drunk. He helped me back to my feet every time I fell and after a while, I started injuring myself on purpose, just to see him. Eight months from the day we met, he said it was inappropriate for him to take such special care in me. He apologized and left. Things went downhill from there. I found myself more usually in the hospital and I had to stay for a month in the psych ward for a month after a psychotic breakdown. He visited me everyday of this month. Back then, I thought he was just being a great doctor. Another thing I didn't know how to do was spot real love from mad love. He taught me the difference. He still does, day by day little by little I learn why the father of my children is not one of the men whom I loved madly.
It's not sad that I didn't fall head over heels for him. It doesn't make our story any less special that it took him a year to call his feelings love. It's what made us last. Nothing was rushed, not even the act of falling. In some ways, I'm still falling. I'm still falling for the little things he do. I'm falling for the way he talks to our son, the way he assures our daughter that it's all okay. He is not the love of my life, he is my life. He gave me back my life.
The day I was supposed to leave the hospital, he rushed after me and finally asked me out. He thought, now that I was better and not his patient, it was less inappropriate. How stupid I felt in that moment that I hadn't realised his feelings for me... We exchanged numbers and my life was changed. I hope it was changed for the better.
The next time, we went to the hospital together, hand in hand to see our baby. She was the size of a walnut back then. It's hard to believe how much she has grown. It's hard to believe how much we have grown. He was thirty and handsome back then. I had a body that made models jealous. Now we sit in the house all day and my breasts are saggy but he holds my hand and we go back. It's twenty years ago and I'm unconscious in the hospital only to wake up to his beautiful face. I'm on the street where he first kissed me. We're back on our first night together and he is touching the pain away.
The first time I told him I love him is when I knew he wasn't the love of my life. He is more. He is everything. He gave me a life I didn't know was possible after my mother passed away. He gave me a love I didn't know was love after my mother cried herself to sleep every night in the absence of my father. 
One last thing I didn't know when I was 15 was that that kiss was just the beginning of a lifetime of happiness. I didn't know that that kiss was a price to pay in order to get to the man I am with right now. All the heartbreak brought me to the life I know I deserve and I am grateful.
I am grateful he is not the love of my life.

Cer
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This is our Valentine's day special, hope you liked it, and happy Valentine's <3