On Losing Your First Love

Losing your first love can be so difficult.

I expected us to be together forever. I was in this, in it with you for the long haul. I believed every word and every promise that you made to me. I had no reason to think that one day you would suddenly change your mind. You let me fall for you and then you weren’t there to catch me. I fell and I fell hard.

You told me you needed to grow and that you just couldn’t do it by my side. Those words were like daggers to my heart. I gave all of me to you and there you were, unwilling to do the same.

Why couldn’t you grow by my side? What did I do? How did we get here? Millions of questions ran through my mind.

Could I fix this? Could I fix you? The answer was no. You had to fix yourself. Accepting this was so difficult. I realized that nothing I could have done would have changed the outcome.

I learned that first loves can be so pure. You go in so naïve and so trusting and you never think you will get hurt. When the reality of the breakup finally set in I cried and cried until there were no tears left.

Losing my first love taught me that I am really freaking brave. I let my walls down in this relationship and that was something so incredibly remarkable for me. Had I kept my walls up I would have never experienced some of the things that I did. I let you in and I allowed you to love me. I put away my fears. Even though things didn’t work out I can say that I gave this relationship my all. I won’t live with the “what ifs…”

Moving on has been a challenge. Little things constantly remind me of you. I try to block you from my thoughts but it seems the harder I try the more I fail. I think of how different things were this time last year and how completely happy I was. I want to be able to think of you and not feel anything.

Like the poet Warsan Shire said, “Loving you was like going to war; I never came back the same.”