Sarah , Sarah

Tomorrow my first love will celebrate his 40th birthday. It seems impossible that it was 20 years ago that we met, and yet, we've both lived a lot of life since that summer, marked in part by the three children (one for him, two for me) that we've added to the planet. A score of years later, both single and more (financially and emotionally) capable of bridging the distance between us (he lives in England, I live in the US) we are going to have the opportunity to do something that I daresay few people get to do: spend 10 days together, reacquainting ourselves with each other and with the selves we were back then.

We met at a camp for inner-city kids from Chicago -- and the campers used to sing this song to us all the time that summer. After he went back to England, I listened to it, and the many other songs we shared, and cried, cried, cried. Here are some of my favorite lyrics:

I see the more things change
The more they stay the same
Thought I was past the pain
But one thought of you and it's back again

Sarah Sarah
What happened to you and I?
Sarah, Sarah Sarah
How did the fire die? (Yeah girl)

How could we watch our dreams crumble into dust?
Baby, there's so much more life has in store for the two of us...

...I must admit, baby, that love never died
Deep in my heart, girl
A bit of you still survives

There's been a lot of healing -- I no longer feel pain when I think of him or of us or of what could have been. I recognize now what I couldn't have seen then -- that life did have a lot more in store for the two of us, even if we aren't together. And the love definitely hasn't died -- I don't believe that love ever does. As for the fire dying, I'm guessing it hasn't, but I won't know that for sure until after his visit in August!