We don't give enough credit to our ex's, especially the one from your first serious relationship. I was with my ex for a year and a half, give or take the repeated temporary breakups and fights we had. No relationship is perfect, and mine was far from it.

The time I spent with my ex was some of the best and worst of my life. I learned so many lessons from my first long-term relationship, how to love someone with whom you fight constantly, how to not sweat the small things, and maybe, just maybe, when things aren't meant to be, you let go.

So that's what I did. The summer before I left for school, I was still seeing him regularly, but we were not together. It was just a weird time, you know? But during that time, though we were not officially dating, I still loved him. I knew as I had none for the majority of our relationship, that a long distance relationship was not in the cards for us. We didn't trust each other, and that would only get worse with me living 230 miles away. For the better, I decided I was just going to get him off cold turkey. I said goodbye to him a day before I left for school, and didn't look back.

Until I came home.

Being home this week has shown me it is not easy; especially because for the better part of the last two years, I was able to see him. Our relationship wasn't perfect, but he was my best friend. And now, here I am, in a new relationship, as is he, but for some reason, I miss the relationship we once had.

I don't miss the fighting, or the breakups, or just the general unhappiness that consumed us both. I didn't like the way I was treated, and because of that, the relationship ended. Or, at least morphed into something we could live with.

I threw myself into school, into a new life where he wasn't in it. And at school, I wasn't upset. He was a passing thought, a funny anecdote to tell my friends. I barely thought about him, except for the occasional text to see how the other was doing. After all, we were together for a long time. I felt I was over it, and felt blessed because I never really felt any remorse or upset over the ending of our relationship.

So, I'm home. And I'm finally feeling the sadness over the end of that relationship. I'm with someone new, who loves me and cares about me and gets me in a different way. But, being home has put me back into the center of my past. And it sucks.

I guess the moral is: Take time to grieve your relationship, it's okay to be sad. Move on of course, but take time to be sad. If you don't it'll hit you where it hurts. And it's not fair. But it will be, but it takes time. And that's what I'm telling myself.