As humans, we are meant to love; we love our family, we love our friends, we love our pets, we love our passions. But there is another kind of love: that is being IN love. This can happen many times in your life. I know for me, I am only 18 and have already been in love three times ( mostly because I am a hopeless romantic). Falling in love is one of the most breathtaking, amazing, destructive, intense, feelings you will every experience, especially the first time it happens. Your first love is special; you never forget them or the way they made you feel.This person is usually not the person you end up spending the rest of your life with, but they will always hold a special place in you heart; simply because they taught you how to love.

As Chuck Klosterman defines it “ This is the person who unknowingly sets the template for what you love in other people…” For me, my first love entered into my life when I was 15; I fell head over heels for him from the moment I met him. Falling in love for the first time was scary, but it was exciting. He made me happier than I had ever known possible, and caused me more pain than I had ever known was possible. Surviving my first heartbreak, I wrote… and wrote… and wrote... by putting my emotions down on paper I began to discover so much not only about myself, but about how to live my life and how to love… the piece below is one that I think compiles every piece of a First Love: the butterflies, the tears, the processing, and the moving on.

Oceans & Sand

His rough, calloused, hands gave me somewhere to run to when the waves were too high and the water was to cold

But I would never leave for too long because it reminded me of your eyes; deep, and full of unknown secrets and hidden dreams that I longed to plunge into.

I would walk back, lightly putting my big toe in the shallows, testing the water, immersing myself slowly inch by inch, until I was completely encased by the ocean that was your soul.

Here I saw someone whom I thought I could love forever; I would have floated there forever, slowly drifting deeper into your oceans depths until the land that was once so familiar to me became nothing but a faint line in the horizon.

But then your stormy waves began to rock, and dragged me back to shore, sputtering and gasping for breath, in the whirlwind of your tsunami’s anger.

I was back in the sand, washed up and heartbroken, unable to even look at the billowing waves that surrounded me because every frothing cap and changing tide reminded me of your ever changing moods that I had learned to love so dearly.

I stood at the brink of the ocean, pressing my toes into the sand; the sea lightly kissed them time and time again, and I was unable to fully let go of the beautiful peace that the salty air gave me.

It took an eternity, but I finally realized that I had to turn around and leave the ocean and my love for you behind.

I did not think I would ever find a sight as beautiful or intriguing as the way your waves moved.

But as I turned away I slowly learned that there was more to paradise than just the ocean; there was the palm trees blowing in the wind and sand you could anchor your feet in: It never left me the way you did.