“If it didn’t work out the first time, it’s definitely not going to work out the second time.”

“Once a liar, always a liar. You can never trust him again.”

“Let it go, you guys just aren’t right for each other.”

Every time these words spill out of the mouth of somebody my age, I can’t help but to cringe. I’m talking about the age group from 18 to mid-20s. The age group where everyone you meet is still changing, learning, and growing into the person they are going to become.

I fell in love at the ripe young age of 17. Not the “let’s hold hands down the hallway so our friends see” type of love. It was more like the “oh shit, I think this is the real thing” type of love. Being 17 years old, there were certain things I knew and certain things I didn’t. I knew I was in love. I also knew there were things I had to see and experience for myself in order to grow as a person and be certain of MYSELF, not my love for the person I was dating at the time.

So, I went my own way for a while and did the things I felt like I needed to do in order to prepare myself for a more long-term relationship.

I’ll pause here.

“Oh, she just wants to make sure there’s nothing better out there and then come running back to you when she finds out there’s not.”

Not the case. Not the truth. For some, it may be. But for me, it wasn’t. I was terrified of the way I felt. I knew I loved this person on a whole different level, and I wanted to experience what I needed to experience and allow myself to grow and change so that when I was more ready to embark on that long-term commitment, I was 1000% sure. When it’s for real, it’s forever.

The moral of the story: We are in the prime of our lives. We are figuring ourselves out. We are falling and getting back up and making mistakes and LEARNING. There is a difference between a person who is learning and a person who is just playing games, don’t get me wrong. You have to have the ability and intuition to be able to tell the difference.

It breaks my heart when I hear people get written off for learning and growing. This is something that should be encouraged and understood, because even if you’re not going through it at the time, I’m sure there was a point where you had to do things for yourself to figure out what you needed and wanted. This does not make anybody a bad person. It simply makes them human. If you fall in love young, you HAVE to understand that you’re both going to go through a lot of stuff to figure out how to be the person you want to be. If you’re still standing together at the end of the day after all that…I think that’s what true love is really about; being there and understanding, not pointing fingers and walking away. Taking space to go on this journey is okay.

There’s nothing wrong with it. And, well…if it comes back to you, it’s yours to keep.