Sometimes I feel like life will go out of the way to throw a curveball— whether it’s the best of times or the worst— just to make things more interesting.
Recently, if only by chance, my first love was thrusted back into my personal orbit; his presence is heavy, and I’ve got to carry that weight. With time I’ve become a better lover, a better friend, and a whole person but it hasn’t always been that way. In understanding love in all of it’s forms I’ve been broken down and steadily rebuilt. And that progression has come with its own sets of challenges and life lessons. This time around I’m going to talk about the first time I loved someone, and how it shaped how I love now, because I honestly need to process these feelings in a non self-destructive way.
It’s hard to believe that human beings can truly fall in love at fifteen. It’s hard to decipher love and infatuation as a kid. But from what I can recall, what I knew for certain was that I really, really liked this boy. He was handsome, with long hair and light brown eyes. Not exactly the bad boy type, but enough for us to look like quite the odd couple. I remember his hugs. I would come in from the main hallway and he’d grab me and squeeze as tightly as he could. No pain from being crushed at his side felt sweeter.
Something about us irritates fate. We can never co-exist happily together, like magnets constantly being pulled apart by happenstance. I made the first pull. I loved him, but I always chose the sensible routes over leaps of faiths: another boy at my school when he moved away, a college out of state. And every time, I felt he hated me for it. And I would hate me too. I would end up bored, and lonely and miserable. At least with him, I wouldn’t be bored or lonely.
Lesson One: He will always be the more exciting option, but keep your wits about you
Loving him was like an odyssey, full of peril and tension on the journey to find home. He always felt like home to me. Whenever I was sad, the first place I sought to lay my head was in his arms, even once I’d started dating other men. To get to that place, though, I suffered tremendously. His distain for my choices was a great the source of that pain. My own self-doubt and internalized inadequacy was another. I never felt good enough. If I was, then why were there so many other girls there to take my place once I left again for school? But I could never let go. I was often swept away by his charm. He loved making me smile just as much as he loved to make fun of me. He could light or douse my burning insecurities with a single glance. And it turned me on.
Astrologists call our love a powerful, tumultuous attraction. I found the toxicity exciting. The low of the lows could quickly transform into absolute euphoria. Was he my drugs? Is this why parts of him are creeping back into my life, just when I’m hitting another low? (We’ll talk about that another time).
Lesson Two: Never love any man more than yourself
I admit it: I’m selfish in love now. At one point in our journey, he destroyed my spirit. Once you spend time in a car in middle of winter, with the engine off, yelling into your lap for hours that he will never love you, you know true heartbreak. I whaled until all the words escaped and only sounds were left to be conjured. I never imagined the same boy who’d leave me love letters as voicemails and held me tight as we fell asleep would hurt me so deeply. He is a good person, but he didn’t love himself. And whenever I failed to make him happy I was quickly discarded. I felt worthless. I broke all my rules for him and nothing changed. Being selfless broke a part of myself that took years of hard-work to reconstruct and I refuse to regress.
“I am my first priority.” It’s such a simple, and freeing mantra to claim. If I am not well, everything around me suffers. If I am not well, I cannot make anyone else’s circumstances better. I need to be the best me because the world deserved the best me in it. I need to be the best me because I deserve to experience that Sydney everyday. This doesn’t mean that I will never love again because I have. What is does mean, however, is that no man should be able to take away my joy and, hopefully, no man ever will.
Lesson Three: Get pass your insecurities to get what you want
One thing that always plagued me about our relationship looking back is that the majority of our problems manifested from his insatiable need for closeness. It’s how I know, despite my fantasies — then and even in the recent past — that it may never work between us long term. I love my freedom and flexibility too much, and I’d fear he want to cage me in. Our love was always restricted or long distance. In the weeks where I was gone he’d find comfort in other women, while I’d find solace in developing self-reliance. I’m in only child; being alone is just a part of life for me. But he was thrown into his loneliness around the time I came along and, well, never really escaped his pit of despair.
There’s a quote attributed to author and VlogBrother John Green that I refer back to when I reflect on his loneliness and subsequent depression. “The worst part of being truly alone is you think about all the times you wished that everyone would just leave you be. Then they do, and you are left being, and you turn out to be terrible company.” His insecurities fed off mine. I needed affirmation and somebody to please. He needed adoration and unlimited attention. Two kids who just wanted to love and be in love, lacking the time and maturity to do so: a common tragedy. If only we were older and selfless then, but we’ll never know.
This relationship set the tone for how I’ve navigated every man I’ve loved since. I’m upfront with my desires. I casually discuss emotions and boundaries: my need for affection and affirmation — to feel loved deeply and intensely — to know that there is no one else but me and him, to have excitement and never lose our selves in each other or in the relationship, honesty, truth, and a sense of being at home with one other. I’ve never received all of these needs from any man but, at one point in time, he got close. Maybe that’s why it was hard letting him go.
I always call him stranger. Whenever we meet, so much time has passed. We’ve both grown and changed, for better and worst. I never quite know how to get him to let down his guard and often turn back into the fifteen year old girl, just craving for him to like me if but for a moment. I’m afraid of why he’s come back into my orbit after all these years and what purpose this will serve in the grand scheme of it all. It’s an intensive energy, attractive and familiar like fire. He’s my enigma, but I’ve learned my lessons. And now I able to quell any sparks that fly rather than be engulfed in the heat of this burning flame. Come what may.
SYDSUGOI SPEAKS 