Revisiting the past

Wednesday, May 26, 2004

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about first loves. It’s a complicated thing, this whole ‘first love’ business. The first person who was the welcome recipient of your heart on a silver platter. The first time you had the thoughts that maybe, just maybe, relationships could work out. The one you could spend hours with and never tire of, even after the honeymoon and the legendary ‘one year bumps’ had been passed. The one who, even when you fought, you both understood that the relationship wasn’t at stake, that it was a point that you were arguing over and that no matter what the love was still there. The person who had you before you had baggage from breaking up with them and having your heart broken. The first person who, instead of judging, you simply accepted for who they were. And loved them for it.

The problem is, your first love is your first experience at having a real relationship. Neither of us knew how to really handle love, or problems, or commitment or arguments. We did the best we could, but what experience did we have to tell us, ‘yes this is typical, this is expected, this is normal.’ Because despite not wanting to be average... you want the reassurance of knowing other people go through this too, and this is how they deal with it. And when growing up knocked on our door, neither of us knew how to answer it. Real life, graduation, jobs, finding an apartment. And so we broke up.

He still has yet to be replaced, and he never will be, because he was the original that the mold was formed from. The only thing I can do is to change the mold, little by little, using what I’ve realized since then. I see my past with him as a huge learning experience, one that I’m glad for and that I would do all over again in a heartbeat-but still, a past, one that I hope to move on and grow from. Because if I were to ever go back… it would be out of fear that I can’t do better. Out of fear that I will fail. Out of fear of giving my heart away again. Out of fear of getting hurt. And more then anything, I don’t want to live with that guiding me. I want to do things that cause me to continue to grow and mature.

I know a part of me will always love him, no matter how he feels about me or whether or not we talk or see each other. But I know that our eventual break-up came simply because it was time, because we had learned all we could from one another and given all we could to each other.

In Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, there are a series of reincarnations. With each one you learn, with each one you grow until you reach enlightenment, always in a constant state of change and evolution. And the idea of reincarnation, the idea of recycling, rejects the idea that there is one true love. It rejects the idea that there is only one person out there for you. It is more about becoming the kind of person who can be loved, and how to love, so that when a person comes along that fits, you can adjust and form to each other until you’re no longer two separate pieces, but a whole.

That's my idea of being a romantic.

That's my ideal.