First Love Gone Bad

6

February 8, 2013 by Simply Chimerica

Everyone has a first love, that very first time you fall in love with someone (At least you believe it’s love at the time). It’s inevitably when we are young, and idealistic about relationships.

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My first love came when I was 18. He was 19 and just about the coolest guy I’d ever met. He was someone all other guys wanted to emulate, and was never without a friend. Men and Women a-like were drawn to his charisma and good looks. We became fast friends that eventually became romance. I fell hard, quickly, and deeply. I made him my world. I forgave him for any and all hurt he caused even when I knew deep down that it was wrong and unforgivable. All because I wanted so much for him to love me half as much as I loved him, all because I wanted to hold on. I only allowed myself to focus on the good. So we moved in together, combined our finances, essentially, we began to form a life together. I thought I finally had it all: Love, Career, Success. I was wrong.

I still remember the moment when he told me he spent the night with her, that it didn’t go as far as sex, but he was with someone else other than me. Even now, I still remember how my heart broke. How I couldn’t even breath, how my heart felt as though it was in pieces all over the floor like a billion fragmented pieces never to be pieced together again. It wasn’t even so much the betrayal that hurt me most. It was that I had sacrificed so much of who I was, and who I wanted to be to hold on to what I thought at the time was a real love. I had somehow become one of those women I swore never to be, I had become weak, forceless, and soft-spoken. Gone was the girl who shouted from roof tops, who could fight and cuss like a trucker, I had wiped her clean out of my life.

At the time, I had no one to turn to, no solace, I could find no peace anywhere. Everywhere I turned, I was reminded of him: places we ate together, shows we watched, all of my friends were mutual friends of his as well. On the outside, I would smile, laugh, pretend I was better than fine, but I was so far from it. I was dying inside. Every drink I drank, every laugh I shared with someone, inside I felt hollow, empty, simply a mess. It was the darkest hour of my life. I lost all understanding of what I was worth. I foolishly allowed myself to believe that it was my fault, that maybe if I did more for him, or focused more on him than building my career maybe things would have been different. Friends would tell me about him, how he was with that girl now, how beautiful she was, how good he looked, and I would smile and laugh, but inside I felt just a little insecure like maybe he chose someone else even after 7 years because I simply wasn’t attractive enough, too aggressive about my career, and too fat. All of the things that made me an insecure adolescent came flying out and smacking me in the face.

Looking back at that time in my life, I realized that I wasn’t as pitiful as I thought I was at the time. I was strong enough to walk away. I knew better than to stay, even though leaving hurt like hell. Today, I am grateful for the sting of a first love gone bad, without that experience I would never have known my true worth. Never would I have been able to reflect on my life and make the positive changes that allowed me to be a better person, to have become the person that my Mister fell in love with.

Today I am strong, I am whole, I am Happy.