When I was 17, I fell totally and completely in love. I feel so fortunate to have had that moment, that chance to have that incredibly powerful feeling. That moment where you feel the world is yours, where anything is possible. It is thrilling and scary all at the same time. It’s all encompassing, not allowing you to think of anything else. You have no idea where that feeling will lead, how long it will last, whether it will affect the rest of your life or not. But, for that moment, it’s yours.
I’m not 17 anymore. Never knowing where life will lead, I’ve had the surprise chance to relive that moment, like an Olympic race video replay, and put closure to the thoughts of that 17-year old me on where that feeling would lead.
It turns out, I wrote a poem just days after that moment back in 1992. I guess life got in the way because I completely forgot that I wrote it. In my 17th year I had started writing my thoughts in a notebook. My thoughts were full of angst and uncertainty about the future. But the last poem I wrote in that book was called, ‘Inspired by the One I Love’. It told a completely different story.
Back then I didn’t know where this overwhelming feeling would take me. All the other teenage girls I went to school with fell madly in love dozens of times. Well for me, that moment did end up changing my whole world and life. I married that man who inspired me to write that poem. We’ve spent a lifetime together and I hope a whole other lifetime is still to come. Everything that has happened to me since then can be said to have been affected by that one moment. Including what happened after I re-discovered that poem.
My now husband took this poem he never knew existed and turned it into song, combining our feelings into one. This song is something I now have to treasure everyday of my life. It is the kind of turn in life you can’t predict or properly express… Perhaps I need to start writing poetry again.
What has love inspired in you?
P.S. If you are in Toronto the day after Valentine’s Day, come hear the song for yourself as The Frank Horvat Band takes the stage again with 2 concerts this Saturday.