Do You Really Get Over Your First Love?

That time may be long gone, but it’s still fresh in memory, probably, always will be. Years pass and you think you’ve moved on and suddenly, it all flashes across your mind, vividly, like it was just yesterday. That’s when you realize that their presence has been lingering on somewhere in your mind all this while. Maybe what they say is actually true. Maybe we never really get over our first love.

Our heart still sinks every time you think of them, of what went wrong, of what it was like, of what it could have been. The thought of having let ‘the one’ slip away still hurts. Then, life does its thing and you meet this incredible woman/man who completely sweeps you off your feet. Yes, you’re in love. Again. But it’s not the same. You love her, you really do but love isn’t the same anymore. Something’s changed. You’re having the best time of your life, but your mind keeps going back to that time when you fell in love for the first time.

That was the first time you looked at someone and felt this unexplainable urge in your system with your heart pounding so loud and fast, you were surprised that people couldn’t actually see it beating out of your chest. That was the first time you discovered that constant state of delirium that transported you to an entirely different world till you no longer knew what was real. That was the first time you discovered madness inside; the first time you felt so much excitement, you couldn’t contain it.

That was the first time in life you didn’t know what you were doing and still couldn’t help falling for it. That was the first time you wanted nothing more in the world than just being with them. But as they walked away, they took all your firsts from you. You’re happy where you are today, but the hollowness still haunts you. What’s gone will never come back. Try as you may, love won’t ever feel as exciting and exhilarating as it did the first time.

First love is silly, crazy, wild. It’s unrealistic, even foolish. It’s like a bird discovering it can fly. That’s first love. It’s adventurous and fearless. You don’t plan it, you don’t control it, you don’t force it. You close your eyes and just take the plunge. Somewhere between ‘growing up’ and ‘moving on’, that innocence is lost. You can no longer love that fearlessly again. You’re not that person anymore. You ‘look’ for love now. You become cautious. You begin to weigh people, emotions, and relationships. You can’t be that child again. The dream is over; love is not the same anymore. And deep inside, your heart longs that freedom, that spontaneity, that madness.

It’s the first time your heart broke. It showed you the dream and then woke you up suddenly. It made you fall, and fall hard. It turned you into this pragmatic being who weighs every possibility, analyses every person, believes in only what he sees, thinks a hundred times before loving anyone again. It made you ‘wiser’, more careful. It bore a hole in your soul that simply refused to fill itself.

And lastly, no matter what you tell yourself, what you try to make of it, it will always be ‘the unrequited love’. You always thought it would work out, but it didn’t. You always thought they were the one and you’ll probably never get over the fact that it still didn’t work out. It’ll always haunt you. You’d eventually move on with life, but seeing them with someone else will never feel right. The ‘what if’ will always haunt.

This real life story might interest you: I am the result of my mother’s biggest heartbreak