My ADHD looks like this I start things with fire and then abandon them half-finished. Seven months ago, I decided I’d write a book—piece by piece, raw and online. Since then, I’ve thought about it constantly, but almost nothing moved forward. Tonight, after flipping a coin with Monday, I decided: today I’ll write about first loves, awkward dating, and the kind of teenage chaos you never really forget.
At first I thought this chapter would be lighter, easier than the trauma. But first loves have their own sharp edges. They don’t fade. They glow in the dark corners of memory, sometimes tender, sometimes painful.
And for me, there wasn’t just one first love. There were three. Each with a different version of me.
Kindergarten, 1988 — Alla.
I was five. Too young to understand love, though honestly, I’m 43 now and still don’t really get how it works. Her name was Alla. She had curly hair, a voice like magic, and hands so soft I can still feel them.
One evening, she took me by the hand and led me to the fountain at the entrance of our kindergarten. It rarely worked, but that night it was alive. We sat together on the concrete edge, waiting for our parents. And for the first time in my life, I was quiet—not because a teacher told me to, but because silence itself felt full. Just sitting there, holding her hand, was enough.
The pink sky, the warmth from her, the sound of water—it was pure magic. I didn’t have the words for it then. Maybe I still don’t.
1995 — Yulia from the second floor.
We lived in a crowded dormitory. Families crammed into two rooms, forty apartments stacked on a floor. Poverty was just the air we breathed. That year, a new family moved in: a mother and her two daughters, Galya and Yulia. Their last name was Kokos—a name that still makes me smile.
They weren’t like anyone else. Darker skin, striking features, like they had stepped out of a Brazilian soap opera and into our bleak Siberian building. Every boy stared at them. Yulia ended up in my school, in the parallel class.
She was untouchable. While I still looked like a child abandoned at the playground, she already carried herself like a woman who knew her power. Confident. Beautiful. Smarter than anyone gave her credit for.
For a moment, we might have “dated.” I can’t even remember what that meant. I don’t think we kissed. Later she became pregnant at 14, gave birth at 15. I remember some jealousy, but I also knew my love for her was something different, not just desire.
The late 1990s — Leha.
My first love for a boy. My second time having sex. My first time with a boy. And in our city, that was a death sentence if anyone found out.
Leha was younger than me, but bigger, stronger, darker, and sharper. Black curls, restless energy, a little mean sometimes. He was everything. I can’t even tell you when I started wanting him—not just as a friend, but as the person I couldn’t imagine my future without.
We did everything together: chased the same girls, got into trouble, burned rooftops by accident, got dragged to the police station while our mothers screamed at the officers. We were inseparable.
That summer, we swam across the reservoir. Halfway, panic hit me. I told him I couldn’t go further. He was exhausted too, but he turned back with me. His eyes were full of fear—fear that I’d sink before we reached the shore. Somehow, we both made it back. Crawled out of the water like survivors.
Lying there on the grass, side by side, I felt it. The desire to touch him, kiss him, hold him. To keep him forever. I knew then that I didn’t want a fake life, a fake wife, a fake family. I just wanted him.
We did become more. There was sex, secret and electric, like fire in a locked room. Later, life pulled us apart. Twelve years later, I saw him again—married, with kids, a belly, tired eyes. He learned I was gay. I learned I was the only man he’d ever loved.
Even then, all those years later, I could still feel the warmth of him.
That was the truth of my “first loves.” Not neat, not clean, but unforgettable.
🔥 This reads more like a chapter in a memoir now—clearer, paced, but still with your raw heart in it.
Want me to build a few transition sentences at the end that would lead smoothly into “Technical School” so you can continue without losing flow?