What I Learnt from Coming Back to My First Love
There was a person in my past who I loved deeply with all my heart. We met when I was almost 14 years old. Before meeting him, I was lost and constantly scared.
I had no opinion about myself as a person, so the only thing I could do was wonder what other people thought of me. Every stranger on the street. Each of my family members. My group of friends. The lady at the shop. They must have known everything about who I was as a person, right? Now it might look like a ridiculous thought of a self-conscious teenager, but it made perfect sense to me. It still does sometimes.
Everything changed when I met him. He showed me I mattered as a person. I was unique, funny and wonderful. He saw it so clearly, even though I couldn’t. He inspired me to explore my inner emotions, the world around me, and the thoughts about people I cared about.
However, I didn’t instantly fall in love with him. Love was growing gradually. Every day. The more we opened up, the stronger my feelings were.
After I said “I love you”, I was so happy I couldn’t bear to keep it to myself. I told my parents. They insisted on getting to know him. The meeting was a disaster. My parents told me to break up with him because his interests seemed weird to them and his appearance wasn’t up to their standards.
“You deserve better”, they said. I believed them. I was a good girl who listened to her mommy and daddy. Even during teenage years. Even when I wanted to scream my lungs out.
The problem was that I didn’t want to break up. I wasn’t ready to abandon those relationships forever. We continued seeing each other for a few months, but it wasn’t the same. There were two parental voices in my head telling me it wouldn't last.
I didn’t know how to end the relationships maturely, so I ignored and ghosted a person I loved. That didn’t work because he needed an explanation. I had to make a decision. I told them I didn’t love him. He believed me. I told him I didn’t need him anymore. He believed me again. It was cruel and unfair. But I was young and stupid.
I dated other people after that. I even thought I was falling in love with some of them. Later, I realised I was more impressed and emotionally attached to who they wanted to be. I dated a guy who wanted to be a rock star and had gorgeous blond hair. I dated a guy who was dreaming about being a fierce and just lawyer who would put criminals in prison. At last, I dated a person who was planning to become an IT specialist and develop video games. I am pretty proud of my teenage self for such a glorious selection. But none of those people were right for me.
After a year of being apart, a person I loved reached out to me. As soon as I saw him, I was drawn to him so passionately and undeniably that I wasn’t able to think about anything else. For the first couple of months, we were overwhelmed with emotions. We didn’t discuss our future. We didn’t discuss our past. We were spending time together, being happy and in love. Nothing else mattered.
You rarely find a connection so meaningful and genuine. But sometimes you lose it. Once you get it back, you hold it tight.
Everything you’ve read above can be said about my relationship with my husband. It’s the story of how we found each other, broke up and met again. Fell in love and became one of those annoying sweet couples. We’ve been together for about 9 years now.
But this story isn’t only about my relationship with my husband.
When I was about 14 years old, I started writing. I was writing short stories, poems, songs, and I even tried to write a novel. I was falling in love with the idea of becoming an author. I was constantly thinking about characters, plot lines, metaphors and other writing-related notions. It was magical. It was sincere.
I was so full of joy and pride that I decided to tell my parents about my writing. They told me I was too ambitious to be a writer. They told me I was smart enough to make millions when I grew up. Being a writer was not good enough.
“You deserve better,” they said.
I tried to continue writing, but it wasn’t the same. Everything I could think about was how I was going to fail. I was constantly worried about becoming rich so that I could meet my parents' expectations. All the characters I loved seemed dull and stupid. I still loved them, though. With all my heart. I loved the person I was when I created them too much to let her go. I didn’t think I had a choice, so I stopped writing. It was hard. But writing with no hope for the future was even harder.
As I forbade myself to write, I had to focus on something else. I put all of my efforts into studying languages. It wasn’t a bad decision. Knowing foreign languages helped me a lot in my life, and I was even able to enjoy it sometimes.
However, the joy of speaking French wasn’t the same as the happiness I once felt creating a French heroine for my novel. After that, I decided to go into marketing, which was even more practical than my language learning journey. Through marketing, I was reminded of my love for coming up with original and unique ideas, which consequently led to my way back to writing.
I was hesitant at first. Then I found some writing exercises online and tried doing them. I was surprised to find out that I was proud of what I could write. I didn’t care if it was high-quality writing or garbage for other people. I felt happy. All those feelings of joy, self-appreciation, and pride came back to me. I felt I found myself again.
People are constantly screaming and shouting about being authentic, genuine to yourself. That’s not always easy, is it? Finding yourself is hard. Keeping being your true self is even harder. Value your authentic self, cherish and never let go.
