Whenever we’re trying to write but struggling, there’s one topic that always feels pretty fail-proof: early love. And what’s more fun to free-write on than a certain aspect of early love…early heartbreak. So, tell us: Was the first person to break your heart the boy next door, your long-term partner? Did it happen without them ever knowing you had a crush in the first place? Was it dramatic, surprisingly inconsequential? Did it happen later in life? We want to know!
Share a bit about it in the comments — one line to one paragraph is usually the sweet spot — and then feel free to keep writing on your own if you’re in the zone. Need some incentive? This week, we’re offering a free one-year Narratively Academy subscription to whoever’s comment gets the most likes. So, post away! We can’t wait to read your stories.
My first heartbreak was in 1983, after my junior year of high school ended. I got high with the captain of our baseball team, a young man I had the deepest crush on, and he told me he loved me. A few days later, I realized he had a girlfriend at another school and had therefore confessed to a filial love for me, not the amatory kind, the kind of burning passion I had for him. I spent that whole summer hoping he'd change his mind...
At 11 my place in the world was clear. I was the nerdy goody-two-shoes daughter of a small town Ohio preacher. I had a tight-knit friend group who planned silly sleepovers and talked about how we’d never be popular and that was okay. I had a boy named Austin from Sunday school whose attention gave me butterflies even though he had buck teeth and messy hair.
Then something happened that had never seemed within the realm of possibility: my dad was asked to resign from his position as church pastor. This meant losing my church community and part of my identity all at once. I raged, I cried, and when my dad accepted a new job a thousand miles away in Florida, I went numb.
We moved somewhere that was 72 degrees in February and no one knew who I was. I missed my home and my friends, and in the quiet of my new unformed life, I realized I had a crush on Austin. Why had I never acted on our ongoing flirtation before? I called my friend Becky and asked her to ask Austin out for me during Sunday school. She said his response was, “Maybe if she still lived here,” and I said “Does that mean yes?” I had my first ever boyfriend!
Elated, I wrote him giddy emails every day for a week. I told him about how Floridians wore parkas when it was 60 degrees out and no one went to the beach in winter even though it was perfectly warm enough for it. I wrote about the M&M McFlurries my mom bought me on the way home from school every day in her guilt about uprooting my life. He never responded.
After seven days of unanswered emails, I wrote him a last email saying this wasn’t working. I had so much energy to put into our long-distance relationship because I wasn’t just trying to hold on to Austin, I was trying to hold on to home. Both were out of my reach now and I would have to forge ahead into the unknown of building a new life.