The Last Time I Saw My First Love Was on My 17th Birthday—Thirty Years Later, a Woman Who Looked Exactly Like Her Walked Into My Yard and Changed Everything I Believed About the Past

For thirty years, I hated my birthday.

Not in the casual way people say they “don’t like getting older.”

But in a way that made the day itself feel wrong.

Heavy.

Sharp.

Like a reminder of something unfinished that refused to fade.

Every year, I filled the day with noise. Work. Yard projects. Repairs. Anything physical enough to keep my mind from drifting continue reading …