As a young man I tried to play the social scene with women who were way out of my league; I set the bar high, and failed to hit it. By the end of my third major relationship my heart was in a million pieces. The woman I eventually married helped me to put it back together, but it’s never been the same.
30 some years after my first love I still dream about her, about what her life has been like all this time. I know where she lives and I cannot get the courage to show up and say hello. I know where the others live as well and likewise, can not find it within me to ask them for closure. Perhaps there is no closure and in that case, these wounds will never heal. I accepted this “fate” long ago, internalized the melancholy, and today endeavor to make sure that my outward persona reflects the silver linings of my present optimism toward life, and not the dark clouds of the past.
My biggest fear is that, when on my deathbed, I tell my wife I love her only to have her hear the name of one of my past loves. This would be as sad an ending as I could possibly devise, and I owe it to my wife not to let it happen. For that reason I might someday put away my apprehension and start knocking on a few doors.
BuffaloBloodDonor 
Does your wife read this blog? Also, I would love to know the background of yoru blog’s name -do you play rugby or something?
Jen14221,
My wife does not yet know that I have this blog, but not because I’m attempting to keep it a secret from her. Rather, I’m trying to collect enough thoughts and put them down – as I would in a journal – and when it reaches critical mass I’ll surprise her with all those things she thought she knew about me.
That’s all this blog is: an attempt to understand (and appreciate) the influences that drove my life to its current place.
I have never played rugby although I suffered my share of cuts, bruises, broken bones and knee surgeries from athletic recklessness. The type of bleeding that I prefer to write about is all mental.
Buffalo Blood Donor