I often wonder at the definition of first love. Many acquaint it to different people, for different reasons. Could I acquaint it to the first crush I ever had? Well then that would have to go to Orlando Bloom as Legolas in The Lord of the Rings. Do I count it as the first heart pounding, late night longing, tear-jerking crush I ever had? Well, that would have to go to a boy named Chase at the tender age of twelve, whom I was infatuated with for quite some time. Though he never liked me back, and while it was fun to crush on and spend nights talking about him with my girlfriends, I don’t think I could call it love. No. My first love belongs to my first boyfriend.

“Look what I found,” my husband, Theo, says with a sheepish grin as he slides a red notebook across the kitchen counter.

“What’s that?” Our five-year-old son, Julian, points at the notebook, decorated with firetrucks and glimmering hearts.

I was pulling a pizza out of the oven when I nicked the heating element with my left ring finger. Now where a ring might be, I have a half-centimeter stripe, symmetrical enough to suggest a wedding band, a reminder of those I've worn before. It's red—the color of stop, of angry, of hurt—evoking both my marriages: the good one that reached "until death do us part," far too soon, and the bad one that made me feel diminished.