30 Days: Day 3

Day 3-Your first love
I think this one is highly interpretive and because of that, deserves a couple different answers.

First, I've been with Shell for almost 19 years and it is not a stretch to say that she was my first real, true love. What started as the strongest love I'd ever felt at 17 years old has evolved into grown-up love, strong enough to survive and grow through everything we've been through.
Shell was my first love.

When I became an aunt for the first time, I felt a love for my niece that was like no other. She's 16 years old and when I think of her even now, it overwhelms my heart. Her existence allowed me to experience the kind of earth shattering love that served as practice for the love I'd feel for my own kids. My heart stretched wide with love for her, making lots of room for the space I'd need for my nephew, my other two nieces and my babies.
My niece was my first love.

It's been over 22 years since I met my best friend and the love I feel for him is only rivaled by the love I have for my sisters, my nieces and nephew, my children and my wife. He is the first friend I ever had that I loved unconditionally, missed desperately when we were apart and felt loved by no matter what I did. In those emotion-charged teen years when everything was felt to extremes, he made me feel that I had value and it was not based on how I dressed or what I weighed or how much money I had. It was based on who I was inside, and if he thought I was good enough to be such a close friend, then I must have been worth something. To my teenage self, that meant everything to me.
Eric was my first love.

Books have consistently been a love of mine my whole life. My mom wrote in my baby book many times that I loved books, even before I could read. When I was younger, I read a lot. My childhood best friend did not read, but we had a lot of other common interests. I can't remember when it was exactly, but I remember we shared a fascination with the murders committed by the Manson family in the '60's. We were talking about it one day with my mom when she went into her own stash of books and pulled out Helter Skelter, which was written by the prosecutor of Manson. I ended up reading the book to my friend, since she would never tackle it. I read Gone With the Wind over the summer when I was 11 years old. I completely read and enjoyed almost every book assigned in my English classes, except for The Odyssey, which I couldn't finish and used Cliff's Notes to complete the tests and assignments. Thanks to high school English, I was introduced to To Kill A Mockingbird and it became and still is my favorite book.
Books were my first love.