about the boys i've loved

my first love

In most love story endings you get the inevitable happily ever after's or the tragic deaths but my love story was different. It was realistic. Though most realistic relationships end with either both parties hating on each other deeply or in the 'let's just be friend's' stage which in other means is just another definition of awkward acquaintances, mine was once again different. We actually ended up friends. But in all honesty, how can you just be friends with someone you fell in love with?

Carter sent me crazy in more ways than one. We laughed, we cried, we loved, we hated. But still, he was the greatest thing to ever happen to me. He is more than just my first proper boyfriend, he is my first love. Yeah that's exactly what he is. He's the one who introduced me to everything I didn't know and directed me to like the things I once hated. I loved him, and he loved me back and he also broke my heart. But no matter how hurt I am, I will always love him. Always. He will stay with me forever.

We were infatuate from the moment we got together to the moment our relationship ended. He is absolutely perfect; he made me immensely happy and treated me like how any girl should be treated. And although our relationship wasn't very long, it contained more than the average and was very much real.

One afternoon while we sat criss cross on the bench at the park eating hot chips, a guy came up to us and asked if we had seen his missing dog. After we apologised and he left Carter turned to me and said 'you don't realise what you have until it's gone' and I knew that many people say that all the time about breakups but with me I knew what I had, I just never thought I'd lose it. And oh how messed up that is.

But you know what's also messed up? The fact that I can be without him for six months, a year, five years and have mastered not thinking about him and finally letting go, but no matter how much time passes there will always be that moment where someone could mention his name, I'll see a photo of him, or see something that reminds me of how much he really meant to me and how much I really loved him and I realise that I'm not completely over him as much as I hoped and suddenly I'm plagued with a rapidly sinking stomach and the relentless question, "what did I do wrong?"

And I've learnt that there will be many more lovers to come. I will have more broken hearts coming and I'll even break a few myself. But even though there's more fish in the sea, it's unavoidable that deep down I will compare every one of them to him. And none of them will live up to my expectations, because he was my first love.

So what my point really is here, is that you can never 'just be friends' with someone you fell in love with. Especially if they showed you more to life than you had ever known.