A Child Of Atom

File:004
Catagory: Boyfriend, November 1991 to February 1992, The One Who Got Away, several years following.
Met: The Castle, Greenville, SC
"L" Word: Yes
Age Differential: He-26, Me-19
Signifigance: First love, First Christmas.
Reason for Break-up: Distance

History: Ex004 and I met backstage at a drag pageant, specifically a drag pageant for larger drag queens, "Ms. Greenville at Large." At the time my best friend was a drag queen, and he was up from Atlanta to support a friend of his by being a back-up dancer in the talent portion of the competition. The exact song that she was performing is lost to the vagaries of my memory but Ex004 was dressed as a zombie and they had a full sized coffin that they were using in the number. He melted my heart by offering me one of the silk flowers that were on top of the coffin. Yes, I was won over by faded silk flower that had been stolen off a grave soemwhere in Atlanta. I still have it.

Ex004 and I spent the next few months commuting back and forth between Atlanta and my hometown in South Carolina, about a 4 hour drive. I spent the first (of only 3) Christmas holidays that I had ever spent with a boyfriend with Ex004. Most of the night was passed in a hotel room with a bottle of Amaretto and presents. He gave me a set of crystal wine glasses, (that I also still have) and a glass sun-catcher thingie that spent the next year hanging from my rear view mirror.

After we broke up, he and I spent the next few years of our lives orbitting one another, but never completely reconnecting. He was, for years, the yardstick by which I measured other guys. Many of the infamous coincidences in my life revolved around him. It was quite a long time before I became able to convince myself that he was not actually "the one" and that there were better choices out there.

The end finally came when he asked me to do some work for him, through an event planning company that he worked for, and after spending the weekend with him I realized that we had taken very different paths in life. We had also taken different paths than we each thought the other had. I no longer liked him as a person, and was ill thinking about what I might be like if I had stayed with him, and followed the same track that he had.

Current Status: Living in Atlanta, working as a party planner, amateur photographer. We have not spoken since 1999 or so.