Let me tell you about my first love, or what I thought was love. We all experienced it. We fall in love and more often than not, the love was fleeting. Why does love hurt so much? I wish I knew the answer to that, but here I am writing about my first love. I have learned that, unfortunately, the first time one falls in love, it changes them forever. No matter how hard I try, the feeling just never goes away. It has been over five years, since the boy who I thought I could love forever broke my heart. I was strong and I am strong, but the feeling that I seek just never seems to go away. So this is how I know that it was love, but it is also through my first love that I learned how to become a stronger and better lover and fighter. I became a person wholly and worthy of a life worth of love -- a love of self.

I strongly believe that we all need to experience heartache in order to become capable of not only loving oneself but also for loving another individual. I want to thank my first love for teaching me that love can hurt but alsoteach. My first love damaged me. I would never be as innocent as I ever was. I would never be as happy as I ever was. I would never be as romantic as I ever was. I would never be as carefree as I ever was. I would never be as culpable as I ever as I was. I would never be as vulnerable as I was. I would never be as impulsive as I was. In this sense, I guess I can ultimately thank my first love. My first love has guarded me, but I can truly say that I am guarded for the better. I have become a fighter. I have become aware. I have been molded into a person capable of not only love for another human being but also as a person openly ready for the most important type of love, self-love. Now, this is the love that I only seek for the moment. I do not think I am ready to love another being until I learn how to love myself.

This is why I want to thank my first love. It is only through the aching break of my heart from someone other than myself that I thought was worthy of my love that I have become utterly cognizant that no other being is worthy of the free giving, wholly nourishing and constant sprouting of my own love. I think this is why a lot of us experience the breaking of one's heart so fast and so readily. Most people experience this heartache when one is young, naive, vulnerable and inexperienced. One certainly does not love oneself in such youth. Until I garner a love for myself, I do not think I am capable of loving another individual. Why love another when one cannot love oneself?

I know I have been repeating the aforementioned phrase quite readily. But I guess it is my way of imparting the importance and magnitude of the line. I think that young adults must be wary the next time they fall in love. I want nothing to experience heart ache again in my life. This is why I am guarded. I owe it to my first damaging heart ache. And, I would not change it for the world. As much as my first heart ache hurt and damaged me, I would not take it back for the world. I actually want to thank my first heart break. It is through him that I have learned. I have learned that I was not as a strong as I am now. I have become a more self-aware and self-worthy individual. I have sought a life of self-love. I want to love others, but I must love myself first.

I am on a constant journey of happiness. All I seek in life is to become the best possible version of myself. Once I have achieved this state, I can love another.