My First Love
Some people remain in our lives forever. Others stay beside us for only a few weeks or months. And yet they, too, remain in our hearts for a lifetime. My first love was one of those people. I was sixteen years old. It was 1964. I was still young, but at an age when we slowly begin to discover the adult world. To me, love was still only a word whose true meaning I had yet to learn.
Then she entered my life. Her name was Michalizza. She was a young woman of Greek origin. We met in Schaerbeek, Brussels. Even today, a smile comes naturally to my face when I think of her. She was very beautiful, but what stayed with me most was her magnificent long, dark hair, which fell in gentle curls over her shoulders. I found it especially beautiful.
Perhaps that is why one memory of her remains so clear in my mind after all these years. We were dancing together. In the background, Adamo was singing Une mèche de cheveux. At that moment, it was simply a beautiful song to which the two of us danced.
But moments later, that song would take on a meaning for me that I would never forget. It was our last dance. I knew I had to leave. She, too, knew that the moment of our farewell had come. There were no grand words. No dramatic promises. Only the silent awareness that a beautiful moment was coming to an end. Michalizza then did something I have never forgotten. She took a pair of scissors.
She cut a small lock of her long black hair. Very carefully, she placed it in an envelope. On that envelope, she drew a little heart. Then she gave it to me. And before we parted, she placed a tender kiss on my cheek. I was sixteen years old.
Perhaps I could not yet fully understand why that small gesture touched me so deeply. But I sensed that there was something special about it. It was a small piece of herself that she was entrusting to me. A memory of what we had shared. From that day on, Une mèche de cheveux would never again be just a song to me. Whenever I heard it later, it carried me back for a moment to that final dance.
To Michalizza. To her long dark hair. To that envelope decorated with a heart. And to that tender kiss on my cheek. Perhaps that is what makes a first love so special. At that age, everything is experienced more intensely. A look. A smile. A few exchanged words. And suddenly the heart begins to beat faster. We needed no expensive journeys. No gifts. No grand promises. Simply being together was enough to make us happy.
Little by little, I discovered what it meant to wake with someone in your thoughts. To wait impatiently for the moment you would see her again. To feel happy the instant her face appeared. And to feel an emptiness when she was not there. It was a youthful love. A sincere love.
An innocent love. As only a first love can be. At that age, we often believe such moments will last forever.
Later, life teaches us that it sometimes takes another road. In time, our paths separated. Without anger. Without drama. Simply because life led each of us toward a different future. At the time, I did not understand why some encounters had to be so brief. Today, I see them differently. Some people do not enter our lives to stay forever. They enter to help us grow.
To teach us something about ourselves. Michalizza introduced me to the beauty of a first love. The tenderness of feelings that were only beginning to blossom. And she taught me that we can be grateful for a beautiful chapter in our life even when it did not last forever. I do not look back on that time with sadness or regret. Only with gratitude.
For every person who crossed my path contributed in some way to the man I eventually became. Later, when I met Dorina, I was already a different man. More mature. More aware of who I was. And better prepared to build a life with someone.
But I also know that each period of our life prepares us for the next. Without first steps, great journeys cannot take place. Without our first feelings, great loves cannot be born. That is why I think of my first love with tenderness today. Not as a story left unfinished.
But as a beautiful chapter of my youth. And when, so many years later, I hear Une mèche de cheveux today, I sometimes see Michalizza before me again. Her long dark hair. The scissors in her hand. The little lock she placed in an envelope. The heart she drew on it. And that final tender kiss on my cheek. Some memories do not grow old. They simply become quieter.
But they never disappear.