first love

“First love came with a contract that it wanted me to sign in blood, that I would always be the girl I was at eighteen. First love came with dirty hands, ready to shape me into half of what first love thought we could be. First love was cocky and drunk, daring the world to fight us. First love was stupid and reckless, making promises it couldn’t keep. First love was cold and quiet, leaving before it was left and when it left, first love left with the air in my lungs. First love left with the belief in my bones. First love left with deflated vows and cracked certainty and a heart that was reaching for something I couldn’t see. When first love left, I burned the contract and let myself grow.” -Fortesa Latifi

God, first love.

Frenzied, vehement, unpredictable first love.

My first love was at 18. We swore a week into our relationship that if we ever broke up, we’d never date again because it would be impossible to find someone as perfect. A year later, my first love was my fiancé.

September 2014 was spent picking out our first apartment.

October 2014 was spent picking out all the coffee shops and restaurants I could go to without thinking of or running into him.

A week’s difference. Unpredictable first love.

My journal entries for months to come were full of imbalance. Or balance? Entries proclaiming how good I was doing; how healthily I was coping. Even more entries proclaiming that I couldn’t manage; that I didn’t know where to begin in overcoming the loss.

It wasn’t a healthy relationship, which is exactly why it was so unbelievably heartbreaking, and why it took so long to bounce back from. But the week we broke up, I was told that it could take up to a year to get over him. A year? A year seemed like a lifetime.

And a lifetime is exactly what I dreaded every time I woke up and felt the “news” crash into me again.

Months of grasping for ways to resurface and get over him- three different counselors because I couldn’t talk to any one counselor without getting frustrated to the point of tears, a coffee table littered with bottles of Jack Daniels and Evan Williams, 5 showers a day just to escape and give into my tears, countless books telling me how to get over him and become independent again, my ‘no fucks’ playlist on spotify, perks of being a wallflower on repeat for months to regain strength, daily coffee outings with my best friends, replacing him with another guy, and another, and then another…

Somehow, all of the above made for an effective combination. Until we got back together- for a single day.

But one day was exactly what I needed to remind myself of what a beautiful thing I’d had with him, and forget how disastrous that beauty could be.

I spiraled, and took on the same coping mechanisms, but with a little more intensity.

At some point, I got caught up in life- I got caught up in dealing with my coping mechanisms and how they’d hurt me (as well as aided me), figuring myself out, and finding my drive again. I became so caught up in life that I neglected to realize that I’d reached my destination.

I was over him.

I’ve been over him.

When did this happen?

Part of me wishes I’d known the exact moment, but more so, I’m proud that I’ve been too caught up in myself to have even made a conscious effort to forget about him.

I look back on that girl; the girl I was when I was no longer his:

The one who couldn’t eat for weeks. The one who had to make the 8-hour drive home every weekend because she couldn’t handle being in a city that had become synonymous with his name. The one who got so drunk that she still felt drunk when she was overwhelmingly sober. The one who measured time according to how long it’d been since she’d lost him.

“I feel like I’m drowning.” “I don’t want to move on without him. I can’t do it. I can’t.” “I can’t handle accepting a life without him.”

But I did it.

“Lei. I cried, because I thought to myself, ‘Fuck, man. I did it.'”

I resurfaced. I’ve moved on without him. I’m living life without him.

There’s no right way to do it. I let out my emotions on him more than once- I cried, I let out my, “fuck you”‘s. I hid it from the world, avoiding vulnerability because that’s what had gotten me to where I was.

I wasn’t just broken, I felt completely shattered. I’m not whole, but I’m as whole as I’ve ever been.

I don’t drink to cope, and I definitely don’t do it every night anymore. I don’t fall for replacements, because there’s nothing to replace. I woke up one day and realized I didn’t take five showers anymore, I take the usual two. I’ve replaced my, ‘no fucks’ playlist with my ‘feel’ playlist. I can’t tell you offhand how long its been since we were together.

First love.

Transformative, unparalleled, foundational first love.

Nothing scared me more than falling out of love with him and moving on. This is what I was so unbelievably scared of?

“So I am not a broken heart. I am not the weight I lost or miles I ran and I am not the way I slept on my doorstep under the bare sky in smell of tears and whiskey because my apartment was empty and if I were to be this empty I wanted something solid to sleep on. Like concrete. I am not this year and I am not your fault. I am muscles building cells, a little every day, because they broke that day, but bones are stronger once they heal and I am smiling to the bus driver and replacing my groceries once a week and I am not sitting for hours in the shower anymore. I am the way a life unfolds and blooms and seasons come and go and I am the way the spring always finds a way to turn even the coldest winter into a field of green flowers and new life. I am not your fault.” -Charlotte Eriksson