TA TALKS BACK: FALLING IN LOVE FOR THE FIRST TIME, ALL OVER AGAIN
TA fan Theresa tells us about falling in love for the first time…:
The scene: a high school biology classroom. A boy and girl sit at a black-topped lab table. He has tousled, unruly hair, and the most beautiful eyes she’s ever seen. At turns moody and charming, witty and dark, he mutters sarcastic comments under his breath, but then looks at her sideways and flashes a crooked grin that stops her breath and melts her heart. She doesn’t know it yet, but he’ll change her life in more ways than she could even dare to imagine. She’s falling in love.So began my sophomore year in high school.
Imagine my surprise at meeting that boy again, sixteen years later at 36,000 feet, in the pages of a black-covered book on a flight from Chicago to San Francisco. I was several chapters in, grinning to beat the band and wondering if my fellow passengers thought I might be a little crazy, when the realization started to dawn on me: I knew Edward. Not only was I falling in love with Edward Cullen right there on the plane, I had fallen in love with my Edward the exact same way all those years ago.
In that instant it all came flooding back: the joy and fear, the pure exhilaration and intense self-uncertainty, the intoxication and insanity of first love. Emotions that I remembered having but thought I’d never experience again were brought to the surface, and with a vengeance. At 31 I wasn’t exactly expecting to be feeling like my 15-year-old self again. As the plane started its descent I was only halfway through, having spent several hours immersed in the Twilight/high-school-me world. I was emerging from the meadow with Edward, remembering all the parallel experiences I had had with my Edward, and considering whether Stephenie Meyer had been stalking me.
Since I was in San Francisco for work, I found myself wondering how I was going to make it through the coming days at the office without seeming like a love-drunk teenager. It’s a good thing we have a laid-back atmosphere at my office, because I was woefully unsuccessful. I was as giddy as I could be, and prattled on to anyone who would listen about this fabulous book I was reading about a sparkly teenage vampire and the girl who loves him. But in my head and in my heart, I was somewhere else completely.
I forbid myself to read any more of it before the return trip, as I could barely hold it together as it was. Even being used to my normal semi-obsessive behavior patterns, more than one of my co-workers had concerned looks on their faces after the second, third, or fourth explosion of girlish delight over this story and its main character. Suddenly everything related to Edward, just like everything related to my Edward when I was 15. But when you’re 15, it’s understandable; when you’re a multiple of 15, not so much.
I have never been so happy to be in an airport, suffering through the security checkpoints, and settling into an over-crowded plane as I was on that return trip. I had four and a half hours of uninterrupted time, and I knew how lovely that time with Edward was going to be, because I had already lived it. Miles flew by as I grew more infatuated, fell deeper in love, and remembered more and more what it was like to be me back then. Back when I was Bella, and my crazy-hot biology lab partner spoke in riddles, drove too fast, made fun of my aging pick-up truck, and drug me out into the woods for emotionally-charged conversations where we put our hearts on the line.
I finished with a little time to spare, so I did the only thing I knew to do, the same thing I did back then. iPod in hand, I turned to the songs that had gotten me through young love before. I arrived home, raving this time to my friends about the sparkly vampire, but my nerves were wound tight with feelings from the past. In my head, the familiar refrain of Jewel’s “Near You Always” had never rung more true.
“Your hands are in my hair but my heart is in your teeth…”
So come on ladies: how many others are out there, fawning over Edward Cullen on the outside, but re-living their teenage loves on the inside? How closely does Edward resemble your Edward? And just how much Bella is in you?
Talk Back to us….what do you think?
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Oh my gosh, I love Edward and I WISH I had a boyfriend like him…sad to say I didn’t.
My 1st love was when I was 21 so it wasn’t a highschool kinda thing. But this article is so cute!
I am so glad you said it!! I am 33 and can’t understand why I am so obsessed! That is it! It’s like high school love all over!
My husband makes fun of me, but I swear I am 16 again. I feel younger! I felt stupid at first, but couldn’t give it up. I try to find all the new info I can on the internet. I sure am glad they didn’t have the internet when I was 16. I might have been a stalker!!
Thanks for saying what so many of us middle aged women feel about all this! OMG, did I just admit to being middle aged?? WOW
Kelly Provence
OMG! Finally… I’m not the only one! I feel the exact same way. Being out of highschool for quite a while now, I have been feeling so childish obsessing over these books.
Although I have been with “My Edward” for over 6 years now, I just can’t help but feeling so giddy all over agian!
i’m only 16, and my amazing boyfriend is so oddly similar to edward. i often feel like how you did, with the stocking thing, ahahaha, but obviously that can’t be true considering my age. i’m praying that we’ll end up just as happily as edward and bella(:
Great article! It’s so fun to read about other women close to my age who become giddy at the thought of Edward and Bella. I relate so completely to this story, not because I had or have an Edward of my own, but because Stephenie makes you feel like Bella in every way. The series the best escape I’ve ever had the privilage to read.
However, I am glad there was no Edward when I was younger. I have a hard enough time now trying not to hold the real men in my life up to the standard of my fictional boyfriend.
This article nailed it. I’m 31 and wondering why I am so fascinated with Twilight. Now I know why. It brings you back to your first love and it makes you remember how good all those feelings felt. They were so new back then and reading this story just brought all those old feelings back. We all still want to feel this way and that’s why we cling to Twilight. We all want what we might not possibly have now in our life, innocent love. We want to feel young and desired. We are all Bella’s and Edward is our knight in shinging armour come to rescue us from feeling old. It’s good to feel like a teenager again
I never got an Edward, I did have a creepy guy who liked to watch me sleep though **shudders** I found one guy who I thought was close many years ago… I couldn’t be more wrong.
As for Bella… yeah none of it really. I had the immature mom. I have had to choose between two… or three great guys, but that’s about it.
So very little pertains to me. I wish I had a hot biology partner…
I never had an Edward in HS either Claire de Lune but maybe that’s it right? I really wanted one all through HS - never got one. Then I graduated and my Edward showed up. Leaving me the sweetest of notes on my car while I worked, sending me flowers - WOW! My redneck Romeo drove an old pick-up truck which I adored! Alas, it was only to be a summer romance but WHAT A SUMMER!
THANK YOU Theresa for this wonderfully written walk down memory lane. I just turned 41……..
This is it! I knew it from the beginning of Edward and Bella’s story. I was 15, fell in love with my Edward, and we would even meet in a place that was like the meadow. I had to keep him a secret from my Mom,cause she said he came from a rough family. He loved me sooooo much, and thought I was his everything. It also took my Edward almost a year, before he even kissed me. Once he did, I felt my love for him, was forever. We were a secret from my mom,[even though I really think she knew],for 6 yrs. Then on my 21st. birthday he was suppose to pick me up to go out. I waited for 2hrs. outside my house, and finally gave up and went looking for him in my car. Low and behold, when I drove by a bar we always went to, he was in there.Not doing anything wrong,just there. My heart broke, and there began the HOLE. I never could forgive him, even though he went to all of my family,including aunts and uncles,trying to get me back. But I wasn’t as forgiving as Bella, and was stubborn to give him another chance. Now after 2 broken marriages I will never FORGIVE myself. So,especially in New Moon, I feel the pain.
Oh, I feel so much better now!
As I was reading the Saga, I was thinking how simular Edward’s and Bella’s relationship was to my teenage first love.
Yes, it was the first day of school in 1965. I was 15, and a junior in high school only it was a Spanish class instead of a biology lab. He was the handsomest boy I had ever seen only, I knew from the first time I saw him that he was “forbidden fruit”. Though we became friends, it took about a year before I was finally brave enough to go against the flow of the times.
He was charming, handsome, athletic (football & track) and very much a gentleman. Our senior year we were together. In the beginning, I had to have other friends come pick me up for a “date” and take me to him for the real thing. And we spent a lot of time at the library, though we rarely went inside. ;-}
There were problems with the idea of our attending our prom together, but we went together anyway and enjoyed every bit of it.
When it came to our families, his mother accepted me but worried for us. His brothers were both accepting also, in fact I was even in Spanish II with his middle brother and we did homework together sometimes. He was a very good friend then and during some of the “bad” times as well-sort of like my Jacob.
My mother was not as generous. (Both of our fathers had passed away by this time.) She finally accepted that we were together, but she did not like it very much. And, like Bella, I was an only child.
We went through many trials, both separately and together, but we survived them. He had proposed to me by the end of September that year (1966) and I had accepted. With all we had to go through, though, it was three years and three months before we did get married and we had a son instead of a daughter.
I was living my dream during that time.
Unlike Edward & Bella, it didn’t last. I guess we were too young. We divorced after a little more than four years. After a few bitter years, we became friends again and have remained so throughout the years.
Our son will be 40 on Sunday. We have 19 grandchildren, ranging in ages from 21 down to 4 (10 of them are “stepgrandchildren” but still they are family), and we even have one great-granddaughter who is just 4 months old.
But, on the bright side, my Edward, my first love, and I have been discussing the possibility of getting back together. It will probably be a few more years before a decision is made, (there is a lot to consider and logistics to figure out now) but the possibility of being together, forever, still exists for us.
Who knows, it may end up like Edward and Bella and be a “Happily Ever After” - after all.
I love Edward Cullen! But I am in love with my own Edward, and I was with him for a whole year before I read Twilight. And I am so glad I found him when I did, because if I wasn’t with him before Twilight was in my life, then he probably wouldn’t go that far on my standards list.
So it is a VERY good thing I waited so long to read Twilight! If not, I wouldn’t be getting married soon! XD
Theresa thank you so much for putting into words what I have been feeling since reading the twilight books. I have fell in love all over again with my husband, remembered how it felt when we first met, remembering why I fell in love with him and why he is my Edward.
I even got my husband to read the books and ever since he has read the books he has been so much more attentive to me, more loving, complimenting me, etc. These books are amazing. I keep re-reading them because I want to continue to feel this way about my husband and to constantly remember what it was like when I first met my husband and fell in love.
I don’t think Stephenie realizes what her books have done to her readers and I thank God everyday for her stories and what it has brought to mine and my husbands lives.
even though i’m only 20.. i totally feel the same way. i love not being the only one
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this was a really cute article. thank you for posting. this made my day much better.
:D
I’m so glad you all liked and can relate to my story! It’s nice to know there are more women out there who understand what these books can evoke.
Thank heavens, I thought I was the only one, lol.
I met my Edward when I was 14, and 26yrs later we are still together, happily married with three wonderful kids, 21,17,14.
This article is spot on, the books make you feel like that giddy teenager all over again, the happy times, the heartbreaking times that you think you’ll never get over, the making up, everything.
I only read the books for the first time about 4weeks ago having borrowed them from my daughter, and I don’t think I’ve come down off cloud nine yet
)
OMG! Yes, it’s been like walking a road long known…
I met my Edward some 30 years ago…and lost him to my mother! She blackmailed us - emotionally speaking (she was a recent widow I was her only daughter, blablabla) - and he went away. Dunno if he expected I’d follow him nomatterwhat but fact is that I never did and so our love story never had an actual end.
And it was quite a story! He could even remember the 1st day we met and how I was dressed! I could remember seeing him and knowing in that same instant that my life wld never be the same…Lovely nights, glorious days of sneaking around people (we worked together!) so noone wld know, the pace of our hearts, the confessions, the plans, OMG…
I guess that’s why Edward&Bella story touched me sooo much, I could relive my story in theirs.
My heart still aches but I guess I can now understand that once u love someone like I did, once u had yr Bella’s experience, u can’t regret, u can never look back, u shouldn’t expect anything, take as it may comes, for at least u had it once.
I think I’m in peace now.
Tk u Theresa, for giving me the company I need, the excuse I want to go on and on and on, intoxicated and addicted by Twilight and never wanting a cure…
And tk you Marianne for sharing yr story, u gave me the courage I needed to confess I was so shy amongst these teens and now am happy to realize that there’s so many of us around here, middleaged ladies ever in love - am not alone anymore…
Sorry for the late reply, just registered n begin to wander round the post and articles, it’s my 1st community!