Serial monogamy is somehow hard-wired into the psyche of my daughter.
Even in pre-k.
She first loved Michael who, far too often, got into fights with other kids. Serious fights as far as pre-K goes. He once bloodied another boy's nose in an unfortunate Play-Doh incident. That post-toddler slugfest prompted me to ask her one day on the way home, perhaps, maybe, she should play with somebody else.
"But Mom" she wailed strapped into her car seat, her arm hooked around a squishy, stuffed Mr. Bunny, her best, non-human friend. "I LOVE HIM."
And so began. Sam, Chris, Shawn, Tyler.....an array of boys really. no particular physical kind or type.
They were tall and short and dark haired and ginger. They were jocks and theater nerds and farm boys and skinny-jean wearing future hipsters. And they liked her and she like them and they "went out" although we would have semi-serious discussions about how do you really date when you are, say, 9. She was always singularly focused although she would never admit that they were "going out" until the "break up" was official. Which was usually some kind of discussion or note on the playground or at recess.
Like a fidgety poker player strokes his watch band when he has a hot hand, she has a tell. Not a subtle one. When she has a new love she mentions him.
A lot.
Morning drive to school. Dinner. Late night snuggles. The name pops up again and again.
If I ever dare to venture..."so do you "like, 'like' "....Boy Of the Moment...the answer was almost always no.
But I could see it. And I watched and listened and saw how she moved on seamlessly through the parade of favorites without too many scars on her fragile heart.
And then came The Boy.
He came on the radar in 6th grade, near the end, before summer. I started hearing the name. By the time 7th grade was in swing he started to somehow appear in crowds whenever I picked her up, slumped against a pillar, or a wall, baseball hat pulled low, always in kind of an arm-length proximity to her. Then, the moment I knew it was serious, at field day, he accidentally smashed the glass in her IPod playing keep away. There was mild, co-ed wrestling, involved I think.
She seemed to love both the fractured IPod and the remorseful boy even more after that.
If you can be a middle school player, The Boy, was. Dimples, a sly charm, quarterback on the football team, smart, a little damaged and vulnerable.
There was something about the way he wore his baggy knee-length cargo shorts and said "do you now?" that made the girls all fluttery.
I noticed that whenever I saw him in school, chairs were always in short supply and he and a girl would have to share.
There was a Taylor Swift song popular at the time about the football star dating the wrong girl while his band geek bestie was the right there in the wings. My girl played the clarinet and that song a lot.
And it went like that for awhile.
They were the best of friends, he was "dating" someone else. Then one day, near the end of the eighth grade, the Facebook status changed. It was official. There they were sharing a selfie in a chair next to the word "relationship."
And so it began.
Facetime brought him into my house. I had seen him a lot but not heard him talk much. The others had been boys. The Boy sounded like a man. And the low rumble of his voice became a kind of white noise in the hours before she went to bed in her room next to mine as they talked and did homework virtually together nearly every night.
Chauffeured movie dates turned into shared dinners with parents which turned into afternoons at the mall or arcade, watching PG-13 movies in my den, days at the pool, fishing, holding, hands, school dances and game nights with his family.
When he wasn't with her she talked about him. He shared secrets that she shared with me. She and I spent hours at football and baseball games because he was playing. I loved it for an excuse to be outside with her in the sun or the cold with no electronics. And, plus, you could watch the sunset and the cows from our high school fields.
He became an everyday part of our little family unit that had always been we two.
I became nearly as fond of him as she was. I was protective. Invested. Concerned. I was only half-joking when I told him I'd knit him a liner for his football helmet because only the starters at our football mad high school got the "good helmets".
They were Facebook official for a summer. A school year. A summer again. A photographer captured them at a wedding near the end in a a pose that seemed worthy of a perfume ad.
They were adorable and seemed to be good for each other. He helped her focus on homework. She helped him with vocab. They both had a lot of outside activities that excluded each other. When I was with them together, it seemed sweet and happy.
I didn't know until later that they were the face of the freshman class in the year book plus a big photo of them at the FROM, Freshman Prom. They looked very much the part and were also good students. Stuff of legend.
But beauty isn't always happiness.
And then she broke it off.
It was months coming. I had seen it. We had talked about it. They had talked about it. She needed some time not to be the center of someone's world. She needed to be her own person not part of a couple. He was too controlling.
She knew it wouldn't work. He wasn't ready to let her go.
And while she works through the inevitably long un-intanglement, my job is to help her, listen to her and stay out of it as much as possible.
But there is a part of me that wishes I could tell The Boy goodbye.
But it doesn't seem right. My relationship with him is through her .....alone we have had an hour worth of conversation along in three years.. and she needs me to honor that boundary.
But over three-plus years, they out grew being little kids with puppy love into something as real and serious as you can have at 15.
I had an intimate seat as I watched him grow and struggle and flourish and change and, ultimately, be heart broken and a heart breaker as he moved on too quickly or pretended to.
It is a rare seat to someone growing up that happens outside of a family. My capacity to love is exceeded by the people in my life who need me to love them.
So the worst part, for all of us, is there is no quick fix for an unsprung heart. And I don't know all the details that made her want to leave. But I trust her. She did the right thing.
There's really nothing I can do for them or not even for myself.
I realize "they" were part of my life that probably won't happen again. She'll soon have a license and so, soon, will the Next One. I won't have to help facilitate the next romance so I won't be as necessary or involved.
And I shouldn't be.
We raise them to let them go.
But, for now, I'm 50-year-old woman with a too tender heart who wishes The Boy knew I loved him too for the kid he was and the man he will hopefully become and for being worthy of being my extraordinary child's first love. And, I hope, my Girl knows that she did the right thing and no matter how much I love a person that you love I can never love them more than you.
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