It was slow at first. I had known you for about a year but had never really spoken more than a few words to you until you approached me on a Saturday late in February. We joked about bleachers and becoming millionaires; we bonded over music and our dreams for our future. All in one night I felt like I actually knew every detail about you, every crevice hidden in your deepest corridors. But I didn’t know everything yet. I had worlds left to learn about you while I fell in love with you.
We talked everyday since that day. We talked everyday for 2 years...730 days to be exact. Lighthearted text messages turned into late night phone calls until 3 in the morning; weekend dates turned into seeing each other every day. I saw the way your face lit up when talking about your favorite sport, how you would open up about your favorite memories about your father, a sad smile on your face. In a twisted way, I fell in love with the thought of needing you to survive- that I was helpless without you. Falling for you started slow but became undeniable in just a short few weeks. John Greene said it best: “I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly at first, then all at once.”
Alas, the cold days of winter never fail to follow the colorful days of fall. Falling in love is peculiar because you compare this person to being your very best friend but then you fight with them out of jealousy and anger. You make each other cry and feel jealous and push each other’s buttons until one of you collapses into sob-filled apologies. It seemed to always be me. I was wrong and I always apologized. Even if I didn’t mean it. I said sorry because I felt like you would leave me and we would end if I didn’t. I fell dangerously in love with you because I allowed myself to get hurt in order to keep you by my side. I fell so dangerously in love that I let myself forget who I was and who I wanted to be so that I could be everything you needed me to be. And honestly, I don’t regret that. Your happiness was my happiness and I think that’s what love is all about. We just somehow got lost in love and were too young to really make our love right.
We fell out of love painfully slow. Our last few months together consisted of fight after fight, endless misunderstandings, and countless nights of breaking up and making up. Until it was over and just like that, we had to pretend as if the other person didn’t exist anymore. I’ll never have a love like you- so innocent, trusting, and magical. I loved us enough to let us go, to let you go. I let you go like a balloon- hoping one day someone will find you and that you will bring them the same joy and excitement you brought me.
Falling in love with you was quick and slow at the same time. It was tragic and dramatic and simple. Thank you for being my first love. Thank you for loving me till my world stood still. Thank you for being you.
