Love can be scary. It can be awful and cruel. But for me, at one point, it ended up being quite a beautiful adventure.

No matter what I do, I will always have things constantly changing within my life. Sometimes, it can feel like a storm is consuming me. Other times, I find myself feeling buoyant and free.

The biggest shift I have encountered so far happened a little less than three years ago, and I still find myself wandering back to those traumatic memories. I met a boy, (And no, this isn’t going to be some sappy love story.) This boy became my first boyfriend, and the first boy I “fell in love with.” I thought I was lost before, not quite sure about much. I did not have joy in my life, and I eventually turned to him for happiness.

Unfortunately, I completely lost myself within him. He was the artist, and I was the canvas. The problem with loving someone too deeply, is that you forget where you’ve buried them, and you end up drowning in them. You're buried alive, gasping for air, and gasping for who you were.

I became everything I said I would never be. I went against things I had believed in for 15 years. I used to look down upon others for certain choices and actions, but after him, I could only look down upon myself. He and I only dated for a few months, but afterwards, it felt like drowning for years to me.

There was nothing to help me breathe again.

After he found another girl and we broke up, I lost interest in life and people I once loved with every inch of my heart. It’s so twisted, you know? This whole “love” thing, like really? I fell in love, and I literally fell.

I crashed to the ground and broke all of my bones. I shattered, and I didn’t notice it because I had this beautiful boy whispering in my ear and kissing my neck and nothing else mattered. But, then he left, and suddenly I felt it. I felt everything.

I was hysterically crying in my car at four in the morning in some empty parking lot because it was the only place that didn’t taste like him, and I was trying to hold myself together but his old t-shirts didn’t work as a cast. I couldn’t wrap them around my chest because they wouldn’t fix the craters in my ribs. Literally nothing stopped the aching.

I had to keep telling myself over and over that if he felt the same way about me as I felt about him, that he would eventually care that he destroyed me and left my broken, fragile pieces on the floor for someone else to stumble upon, and to cut themselves in the process of trying to put me back together. But he didn’t. Even though I regret a lot of things that I did when I was with him, I still thank God to this very day for bringing him into my life. He was the best lesson I have ever learned.

Fortunately, I was able to put myself back together. What you hear is right, time truly is the best healer. He messed me up, he really did. He got into my head, manipulated me, and twisted up everything I had believed.

But I let him.

Nobody was there for me, until I truly found Jesus and let Him into my life entirely. He helped me through all of my problems, and made me open my eyes to all the beauty in life, and even more-so, beauty in the lessons life brings with me. To become whole again, I had to break down. I could either choose to be weaker, the same as before, or stronger.

Guess what one I chose.

Yes, I still mess up. But before that jerk, I had many doubts. And after him? I knew love was real again. I could finally start the healing process.

Looking back and having been in long-term relationships since then, I realized that it wasn't true love, and that isn't what love is supposed to feel like. I learned lot of things from that short term relationship that I will carry with me for a long time, if not for the rest of my life. Love really is a roller coaster, but I promise it’s worth the ride.