Wow, Keele and Finch. I knew this corner well. Those buildings, this gas station, that sidewalk.

My first girlfriend lived right over there in that line of brown buildings, back in high school. We didn’t go to the same school, though. I was all the way across town at A.Y. Jackson, and she was south of here at William Lyon Mackenzie. Teenage years spent inside a pair of famous Canadians. The 12 KM distance as exotic and daring as a transatlantic romance.

On our first few dates I met her right here at this Esso station because she didn’t want her parents to know she was dating. I’d assumed we were meeting here because she worked nearby or lived in a run-down house she didn’t want me seeing straight away. When she told me it was because of her dad, I put my foot down (look at me, so macho) and insisted I pick her up at her door for our next date. The dictates of chivalry, you know?

Only a knight-wannabe nerd like me would be so insistent on bringing forward the Meet The Father event, and he turned out to be a burly, scowling, growling Russian man who scared the crap out of me. So did his dog. Come to think of it, so did his daughter.

I remember the night before our first date. A drive across town on a dry run. A simple straight shot along Finch Avenue, but what about construction? What if the road isn’t contiguous all the way across the city? What if there is more than one Finch Avenue?! What if EVERY street on that side of the city is called Finch Avenue and nobody speaks English?! What if I’m so nervous I forget how to speak English too?! What if my head explodes because I can’t remember my–BLAM!

There’s the building she lived in, and the elevator lobby in which I so badly fumbled my first kiss. There’s the sidewalk where a few months later I looked at my watch and asked her to be my girlfriend (I’m the sort of guy who doesn’t just want to remember an anniversary, but also the time of the anniversary). There’s the parking lot we often argued in. And there’s the plaza we argued in. And there’s the other plaza we also argued in. Oh, and we argued over there, too.

I thought I’d be awash with nostalgia, internally opining my first love while I wipe my windshield. But 12 KM doesn’t seem so far away any more. I could do that thirty times on this tank.