Missing the invisible

I miss the invisible. I miss what can't be seen and never really could be seen. It's something that was or is a part of all of us. A link to your past and evidence of your innocence and your honour; depending on your values. I miss my virginity. And even now I'm not sure if it is really that that I miss. Maybe it's the things that come with it that I miss or maybe I just miss the girl I was before I knew about loving and desire.

When I was 17 I developed a sudden and intense fascination with coming of age stories. I’d thumb through books about young girls who came to find themselves through love and desire. There was L’Amant and Summer of ‘76 and Bridges of Madison County. Most of the protagonists were young and on the brink of adulthood. Then there were some who had already weathered through life and had families and husbands. Whatever their age, whatever kind of desire or love would come their way they all had one thing in common. All seemed to live such grey lives before their encounter with love. And it was always love that signalled their coming of age. Their lives seemed to be charged after they had experienced that one thing. For the very young this love was their first; their first foray into adulthood. For the older it wasn’t about first times. They had already loved before, already been touched before. For them it was about a one of a kind desire or love that would up heave their already established lives. I read those books and I wanted to experience that defining moment. I wanted to fall in love and have it take me over and lose myself to it. It seemed like the only way to transform and the only way to come of age.

Now I don’t know why I wanted it so badly. I was brought up in a strict Christian household. You would think that would have deterred me. My naive belief was that my first encounter would be my last. That the man who would touch me would fall in love with me. And with loving doesn’t marriage follow? Those were the terms I thought in and I remember thinking that loving would always come with desire. It never occurred to me that sexual desire could exist completely apart from love. And it’s funny because now it seems like that is the way of the world. Casual in all things relating to sex. I was prepared for the event to change me in some way. Religion had taught me that it was something saved only for the married. Not something done in hope or dreams of marriage. I still don’t understand how quickly it all happened and why I so easily gave in. All I know is that I met him and it happened and after that it was just like the stories.

Cutting away all the detail, it happened one night in May. I wasn’t really prepared for it but it happened and was over with quickly. He was older than me but still didn’t understand how it was like for something with no experience. I remember lying in his arms afterwards and not feeling much at all. I thought that this coming of age story would end right there. That there are some people who can experience it the first time and have it pass them by quickly. I thought I was one of those people but it only took me a week to realise the moment had actually touched me. I felt the loss the next day when I was alone at home. It was a strange feeling. That immediate loss and the emptiness. Like something had been taken that was part of my soul. It all sounds so heavy now but that’s what it was like for me. Things started changing slowly around me. I started seeing eroticism in everything. Life seemed to be changed and now charged with this new thrill constantly. It eventually came to a point where I was starting to experience love and desire with this man. I had never wanted someone before in this way but now my days were filled with yearning. Days of thinking about grades and summer dresses were replaced with days of just wanting him. He seemed to be on my mind every minute. And I saw him in all things too.

During that time there had been a recognition of what had been lost. The physical aspect of what had been lost was my virginity. That I could notice. But it took more than a couple of months to recognise the loss of the 17 year old in me. This was not just about the loss of my virginity but the loss of the things that came with it. There would come a point where this man would break my heart and that was another new experience. The downfall of coming of age. Before that loss we went on for months the same. There was sex but I always took it for more than it actually was. I would bend his words and take his compliments to heart more than was needed. I must have been in love with him but now I know he was never in love with me. I remember thinking that my innocence would make him love me but that was a fantasy. I realise very few can actually appreciate the beauty of innocence and not knowing. So when the time came for heartbreak I wasn’t ready for it.

L’Amant, The Affair...loving never ended for the protagonists. Heartbreak would come but loving would never just stop. With my coming of age story it was the same. He let me go but it took months to stop loving him and at least a year to recognise what kind of man he had been. Not the kind I had made him out to be with flowery language and excessive praise. It was only after it had really ended that I started missing that invisible thing all the more deeply. Of course I had missed it before when I was with him. But that was momentary and fleeting because I still had someone who gave purpose to the loss. Now he was gone it seemed to mean nothing and I was sad about it. I no longer just missed my virginity but I missed the experiences and the firsts that came with losing it. I had been in love for the first time ever and now that was gone. My first in love would never come again. I could love again one day but it would not be my first. More important was that I had never been touched by love before 17. I had never loved a man in that way and so now my world would be different. I now knew about love and what it felt like and the pain that came when it was gone. I couldn’t just turn it off simply without feeling. I think if you’ve fallen in love you’re stained with it forever. It’s not just something that comes into your life and passes without leaving some kind of a mark. So, that was one thing I missed that couldn’t be seen. The first experience of love, the first heartbreak. In all simplicity I think I missed the not knowing and inexperience I had had before I met him. My dreams were simpler before him and my days were filled with meaning and not because of a man. Now my dreams after him became more adult-like and I would be afraid to give in to a man so quickly.

I even remember standing in my room surrounded by girlish ornaments and posters of Hollywood Idols feeling lost. I was only a year older but so much had changed. I could no longer relate to my room or the things in it. They were in place before I had lost my virginity and before I came to know of love and desire with a man, or even heartbreak. It all seemed foreign to me and I missed that feeling of being at home with my surroundings. What made it worse was that I was surrounded by things that reminded me of what I used to be like, what I used to dream of and what I used to want. I wanted different things and now and I wanted my life to be fast. It’s been three years and every now and then I’ll revisit that part of my life. I still miss the past and I think now it’s because I miss the simplicity. With coming to know of love and desire comes a whole lot of confusion and headaches. It was simpler before I met him. But what I know is that it would have had to have come at some point. If not then, now. I used to feel strange about missing the invisible but now I feel okay about it.

Somebody somewhere once said you can live your whole life without much excitement or meaning. That there comes a moment in time when your whole life is concentrated into one single moment. The moment where life just comes rushing in all of a sudden and fast. I used to think that feeling was reserved for the coming of age stories and that was part of my reason for missing the invisible. But I am glad to say it’s happened again and life has come rushing in with a new flame. I might not be able to get back the things from the past but that doesn’t mean things can’t get sweeter.