Everyone loves to hear about the "first love." Maybe it was a high school sweetheart or a college fling, but most of the time it doesn't last. I mean cheers to the couples who make it! But quite honestly, the chances of your first love being the one are pretty slim. First loves are great, and it feels like the best thing in the world at the time, but I'd like to take the time to appreciate second loves.

With a second love, you've learned a lot from the first time around. So naturally, you're going to put your guard up when you meet this person because you don't want to get your heart broken like the first time. But slowly but surely, you put your guard down and you find yourself falling in love again. And there is so much more appreciation for this person. They put up with the all the times you second-guessed whether you wanted to really let them in and make you happy.

And this love is different than the first one. First loves are spontaneous and more of an infatuation. Don't get me wrong, I would never take back my first love. I mean seriously, I thought my world was ending when it was over and it's OK to miss that love because it was real. But after all the hurt of the first breakup, meeting a second love gives you hope. They are good for you in a different way than the first. Because let's be real, after your first real love, you compare everyone to that person. It's awful, but it's true. When you meet your second love though, you forget all about those comparisons. Because plain and simple, you love them. And then they start being that person you can't take your mind off of and you learn the little things about each other than no one else knows. You can miss your last love less and less and love this one more. And of course you know in your heart that not every relationship lasts, so second loves help you really appreciate a person and cherish them while they are still there. I mean hey, maybe this is the one. Only time will tell, but be grateful for the second loves of the world, they teach you more about yourself and what you want than you ever knew before.

First loves are kind of like the test drives: when you figure out how to love. But with the second love you already know. You know how to be with another person and fix the arguments. But now you also know not just how to love another person, but you learn that it's important to know how they like to be loved. Coming to this realization is what makes second loves so good and so important and why my second love feels so true.