I hate writing about Andrew because he means nothing to me emotionally. He is also one of the men who will actually be referred to by name on this blog. I know, right? Most of my friends, and I guess you do too now, reader, know about Andrew. However, given that he is labeled with as my "first love," there are a lot of things I have learned from him.
Your first love is an important milestone in your life. I absolutely abhorred that my friends kept telling me that your first love was meant to be something beautiful-- because each person has a different experience. Unfortunately, mine wasn't all that great. It was dysfunctional, and warped to the extreme. Before Andrew, I had already been with others-- so I knew what I was like in relationships: destructive, demanding, and damning. I was a sheer force to be reckoned with. I had already known how to flirt with guys and how I acted with men.
Despite the various claims that I could "be in love" with other men, it meant nothing until Andrew rolled around. By that time, I had been in enough relationships to know how breaking up worked. I had been scarred before, but no one had ever destroyed me quite like Andrew did. The funny thing about myself was that up till my first relationship-- I had always pinned myself as a "hopeless romantic." I had always thought I would have loved being with a man who treated me like a princess. It wasn't until 'Austin' rolled around, that I realized all of that was the opposite of what I wanted. I didn't want to get married, I didn't want to plan my future with someone and I didn't want to deal with the prospect of "tomorrow," because I wasn't even ready to deal with "today." I knew I was in love with Andrew simply because the future with him didn't scare me. I didn't think we'd be together, or even end up together-- but I saw him as a familiar face in the bleak, mysterious future. That's how I knew. Of course, with Andrew, things were just... complicated. I never want to feel the way that Andrew made me feel with anyone ever again. Things were destructive, and I hated myself every single day. It was a constant battle with myself and my emotions. I always felt like I wasn't enough for him.
However, if there's anything I've learned about love from Andrew, it's that love can make you act like a complete asshole sometimes. While I no longer believe in the type of love that I shared with Andrew, I do believe that falling in love with someone is multifaceted, and is a different experience for everyone. From Andrew, I learned how to love myself and embrace my flaws. I learned to never apologize for who I am, and that I had to learn how to love myself completely before I could learn to love someone else. After Andrew, I always thought love consisted of angry, temperamental fights, where you had to "fight" for the other person to keep them around. This idea of "love" has since changed, but I still agree how my sixteen-year old self summed up the idea of "first loves," and moving on pretty well:
Despite all this, love-- especially first loves, end. They can either fade, or end abruptly. And from either end, it's one of the worst feelings you can feel. But you can't regret what happened, because for a brief, fleeting moment, a split second before you allow yourself to resent the person, you have to realize how much you were truly in love with that person, and how many good times you had. I believe that some people are lucky enough to find their true loves straight ahead, but that's one in a million, and people brew up ideas of the idealistic romance because-- isn't that what everyone aspires to? Nothing lasts forever, honestly, and instead of wallowing in misery-- look on the bright side. You're alive. Instead of resenting the past, look to the future. The only path you can take is the one right ahead of you. Sure, you may not know where it leads, but it's somewhere. I believe, no matter how many mistakes the other person, or yourself has made, you have to let go of lost love eventually. Keeping it pent-up inside doesn't make much of a difference at all. It's gone, if you're lucky enough, then you'll rediscover a flame, and learn to fall in love again with that person, but let it go. Resentment after love makes for a poor outlook on life. And life is what you make it out to be. Don't victimize yourself, look at the world, and Carpe Diem-- Seize the Day. Take an opportunity to reevaluate yourself as a person, and see if anything's changed, and take the lessons from broken love, and fix yourself.
At the end of the day, I believe love is everything. But not truly romantic love. Like I said, we must learn to love ourselves before we can love others. I've fallen from a first love, and I've only been in love once, but who knows? I'm shedding my bad skin, and trying to move on with my life, finally. I'm learning that letting go of love is the hardest stage. You can spend between a lifetime and an eternity trying to get over someone, and it never ever stops hurting. But you need to pull through, because it wasn't meant to be. And you know what? You're a hell of a lot better off anyway.
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