Hi all,
Lorie here! Well, actually I’m not here. As you read this first blog in our Vacation Fling series, I
think it’s vastly appropriate that I’m lounging in my beach chair on Hilton
Head Island, book in hand, my toes digging into the sand as the surf laps ever
closer. Ahh! Wish you were here!
But I digress, today we’re talking about another vacation
and a very different beach—a beach in my distant past. A beach packed with bikini-clad
bodies, where insulated cups concealed more than lemonade, and base thumped from
the cars cruising past. And boys. Cute boys everywhere! Yes, I’m talking about—Spring
Break!
It was my first year away at college and my BFF and I headed
to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Our first day on the beach, a boy with a Harrison Ford-ish, crooked smile
plopped down on the sand beside me and didn’t leave my side for the rest of the
week. Rich was nice and funny and one of the best-looking guys I’ve ever seen
in real life.
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Valerie and Virginia, my BFF Jen in the back and that's Rich sitting next to me on the far right. |
We spent every waking moment together playing in the waves,
hanging with our friends or just sitting on the beach sharing details about our
lives. One starlit night he told me that the first time he saw me, he knew if
he didn’t talk to me, he would regret it for the rest of his life. *Sigh* I just
knew I’d found the boy of my dreams. And when we discovered we were both from
Ohio and our schools were within a few hours of each other, we agreed it was
fate and promised to visit at least once a month and talk on the phone every
night.
But faster than I could get the sand out of my clothes,
reality set in. This was back in the early 90’s. There were no cell phones or
internet, which means no texting, emailing or free long distance. My roommate and
I shared one phone with no answering machine and no call waiting. So, while she
was talking to her boyfriend for hours on end, I was biting my nails off, dying
to know if Rich had tried to call. When we did finally connect, every minute we
spent talking on the phone cost money—precious spending money neither of us had
to spare.
A few weeks after spring break, Rich made the drive from
Ohio University to see me at Miami U. The drive took him over four hours. (No
Googlemaps or GPS to warn him ahead of time how long the trip would actually
take.) We had a fun weekend, but it was clear that musty old dorm rooms and
sorority parties couldn’t compare to our week in the carefree sunshine. Our
romance soon fizzled out.
My fourteen-year-old niece told me how she met a boy on vacation in South Carolina last month. They text almost
every day, send each other pictures, email and even video chat. Will they fall
in love and live happily ever after? At fourteen, a long-term friendship is more
likely. But it did make me wonder if things would’ve turned out differently for
Rich and I if we’d had the same world-shrinking communication tools. Or if
vacation romances are meant to be just that—a perfect moment in time that can’t
be replicated in the harsh light of reality.
Your turn! Have you
had a crazy, intense romance while on vacation or at camp? How did it turn out?
Lorie