My first love left behind this pain, and for a while I thought I was the only one who carried the burden around, but I have gotten over my naivete and accepted the fact that most of us do carry around a similar pain. The big question in this matter is if the pain goes away, or if we as humans do what we do best and adapt by hiding the pain away. The funny thing about this conundrum to me is that if you hide something away well enough is that the same as it going away? I remember about a year ago I decided I was going to get rid of all the memories of my first love. All of the cards she got me... all of the pictures of her.... all of the things tangible I had around that reminded me of her I got rid of, and I put her out of my life.... I no longer went anywhere near her house, I no longer went to the local mall where she worked, I made sure there was zero chance that I would ever see her so that my pain would eventually subside.
The funny thing is about three months into my first love memory boycott, I actually quit thinking about her. I accepted the fact that I left her for a good reason and I would go for days without even a glimpse of her in my mind. I felt great, and now that I look back at it, I know I went months without thinking of her at all, and I hadn't been that happy in a long time.
Time went by happily, and I had new things going on in my life. I was halfway through my study abroad semester in London when I met a girl that would change how I felt. I had, well at the time so I thought, gotten past my first love, and was cautious not to let someone get too close to me. One of the mindsets I had put myself in to get over my first love was to not really trust girls too much. I had been with my share of women that had significant others since I left my first love 3 years before, and it had illustrated to me how heartless people can be just to satisfy temporary needs and feelings. This girl seemed different though, not the type I usually went for and for some reason I started to have feelings for her, feelings I hadn't felt since I met my first love. We were mutually exclusive for about a month and a half in London, and it was wonderful, we talked and laughed, and planned on seeing how things would work when we got back to the states. She lived about an hour and a half from me, so we didn't rush into a boyfriend girlfriend set up. She came and visited me first, the date was fun for the both of us, we saw a terrible movie in IMAX, we broke my Olive Garden Virginity, and we went back to my place to play Mario Cart 64 and make out just like people in a happy mutually exclusive relationship do. Our next date was about a week later, this time I drove an hour and a half to see her. I had no clue what we would do, but I like spur of the moment stuff, so I didn't really care, as long as I got to see her. To my surprise I didn't get to go on a date with her, so much as her whole family, mom, dad, little brother, older sister and her boyfriend for good measure. All in all it was a good day, we went to the ocean like one big happy family and had a great lunch, then we went back to her house and baked and painted Christmas cookies and played Pictionary. Even though I would have rather just hung out with her all day and done the oh so fun activities we enjoyed in London, I was excited to have met her whole family like that, I thought it illustrated how serious she was about our relationship maybe going to the next level.
I was wrong, very wrong actually. A few days later our plans fell through for a date, and the day after that she posted on facebook that she had gotten back with the ex she had left before her semester in London. I wasn't exactly surprised, I figured things might not work out because of the distance between us, but she never talked about her ex with me, so him being the reason my feelings were brushed aside didn't sit well.
The worst part about it though was the fact that I think about her every day now, I think about the chemistry we had and the inside jokes we had, every little flaw she had that I liked... its torture. I saw things in her that I don't see in the other girls I have dated since, and I haven't been excited about the girls I'm dating now like I was bout her. Which brings me to the thing that bothers me the most.... missing things about her has made me think about my first love, who took so long for me to hide away and burry. Now not only do I think about my most recent romance, but I also think about my first one, and I wonder... will the burden get heavier and heavier the more romances I have? I guess only time will tell, but I have pulled a lesson out of all this luckily. I have learned not to regret anything, even though people can hurt you in relationships it isn't worth it to dwell on the bad feelings losing the relationship carries.
Life is a beautiful thing, and the good parts about it, the new loves, the goals achieved, the barriers breached, well they wouldn't be nearly as beautiful if you as an individual haven't experienced the pain of the loves lost, the goals failed and the barriers that hold strong.
ImAllGood You should be too....
Erik
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