Her name was Chrissie and she was the first girl I ever really loved.
The time we had together was wonderful — I was 20, she was 18 — and did so much for me, although the way it ended might have been the one thing that knocked my life off track for good.
Before I go any further, I need to tell you Chrissie wasn’t her name and some of the other “facts” won’t be true either. It has been 56 years, but she is still alive and I have no desire to embarrass her.
We met in December 1969 at George Washington University, the second of my four schools on my 14-year journey through higher education. We were inseparable for the next five months, at least until she had to go home to Vermont for the summer.
I had to stay home for summer school, so we knew we weren’t going to see each other again until September. By late July, she had stopped writing. I was having. a productive summer, working hard and getting my first A in an academic class since middle school. Surprisingly, I was OK with what I thought was the end of our relationship and looking forward to finally doing well in school.
Then in early September, she called me.
She said she was coming down to register for classes and asked if I would pick her up at National Airport. I said sure, not knowing what if anything to expect. Her father had been running for statewide office and had lost his primary election. She had to go back home for a week for a second vote, this one for re-election to his seat in the state senate.
We spent a pleasant day together and at one point in the evening, she asked me a question.
“Do you still love me?”
All I could say was yes.
“Because I still love you.”
Just like that, things were wonderful again. Of course it didn’t last. In a stunning upset, her father lost his re-election bid. Midway through the evening on her first night back, she dropped the bomb on me.
“We have to break up.”
And here was where it all went wrong. For the first and only time in my life, I tried to be macho. Instead of asking why, I just said OK with no emotion at all.
Then it got worse.
Much worse.
Saying goodbye at the door, she asked me if we could still be friends. I said sure, no problem, when of course I meant no way.
“No big deal.”
“Don’t you think this is sad?”
“Not at all. Maybe you’re taking yourself too seriously.”
It would have been more honest if I had just punched her in the mouth. Those were the last words we spoke to each other for 30 years. We did meet once more, at Staples Center in Los Angeles at the 2000 Democratic National Convention. She was a delegate, I was a journalist.
If it had ended with a bang not a whimper in the summer, I think I would have been all right. But having my hopes lifted and then dashed essentially killed me. I stopped going to classes in late October and didn’t even take my final exams. The great irony in it all was that we had signed up for a class together.
I went once, saw her and couldn’t go again. The only graded work in the class was a research paper, which I did and got an A.
But oh, did my life go off track. I had been so ready to start living up to my potential. I figured I could even get things going well enough that I could go to law school.
Instead, I was in and out of school and in and out of jobs until I started what turned out to be just an OK career in journalism at age 30.
Why on earth did I pick that one time to be macho?
I should have told her she was breaking my heart.