When You Realize it’s Over

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They say that all good things must come to an end and although I don’t entirely agree with that statement it may have been true a few years ago. When you’re a teenager and you meet who you think is “the one” they can do no harm. You hold them above everyone else and defend them against any wrong-doings. That’s what love does to a person. It makes you think crazy thoughts and do silly things all because you’re stuck on ‘love’. Now they say that 18 is too young to be in love, but I beg to differ. Love is unlike anything you will ever experience. It takes your breath away yet gives you life. It’s a feeling that is so hard to explain yet easy to feel. Love is so complicated yet we all have loved at some point in our lives whether we admit that to be true or not. The difference is knowing when love is here to stay or whether it’s here to go.

It’s hard to imagine if the love you’re experiencing will be present forever or whether it is something that is destined to become a memory years from now. It’s hard to imagine life without that person and the mere thought gives you chills, yet many of us won’t marry our first loves. We mustn’t hold this against the next love that crosses our path because they were put in our lives for a reason.

How does one know when it’s over? How does one really know that their relationship with their first love is over? Many times people find themselves questioning what had happened and why the relationship had failed. The relationship failed because there was someone better out there designed just for them..

I believe there is a point in the relationship where we begin to realize the relationship would not hold much of a future but we are in denial. Why are we in denial? Love. That sneaky little bastard has convinced us that the relationship will make it. In my personal experience, I knew my first love wouldn’t be my last love after two years of being together. We were great for the first two years. We had our occasional arguments but our relationship was overall great. Even though I had realized our relationship held no long term future, I still stayed in the relationship. Loves makes us do crazy things, remember? The man I first loved hadn’t known other women before me. Hasn’t gotten a kiss before me, and in today’s society with all the temptations the likelihood of him being curious outside our relationship was there. A family member of his actually brought that up to me one day. It was devastating to hear her say that to me, but deep down I knew she was right. From that day forward, I think I kind of prepared myself for the editable.

Now I’m not saying that first loves can’t end up together and live a long happy life, but what I’m saying is that’s not very common in today’s society. I just knew in my case, I wouldn’t have that same ending. Oddly enough I was okay with that.

I believe I realized that the relationship was truly over when I felt like we had simply become strangers. School and work kept us apart and headed towards different paths. We both changed for the other yet we weren’t truly happy with the new people we had become. We spent more time apart than we did together. It took us nearly 4 years to realize that our future together would not be existent.

Four years of your life with someone seems like forever but an entire lifetime together when you’re both not truly happy is the worst. My heart broke when we broke up even though I had prepared myself. I thought I wouldn’t move on. I couldn’t breath, I lost sleep over it and stopped eating but then one day it hit me. I knew that this was going to happen. I had to snap out of my fear of the unknown to embrace the future, because after all I had prepared for it.  I had an understanding that we both deserved true happiness even if that meant we weren’t supposed to be together.

Shortly after our break-up, I  realized that just because I didn’t end up with my first love didn’t mean I wouldn’t love another man. I have an insane amount of love for my husband today. In fact, he may not have been my first love but he is most certainly going to be my last.

I’m a firm believer that everything happens for a reason. We learn from our first loves, our first relationships, and our first heartbreak. At the time we may not understand the lessons we are to endure from those situations, but as you get older you see what you were supposed to learn.

I learned to never lose sight of myself in order to make some else happy. I’m me, and if people won’t accept me for me, then they don’t earn the right to be in my life. I learned that in relationships it’s so very important to communicate. Communication is key to having a great relationship. I learned that jealously causes more problems than the thing that made you jealous in the first place. I learned that first loves are not necessarily you’re last love and that’s ok. I’m fortunate to have learned from my past relationship because it has molded and shaped my current relationship into something so powerful and strong.

It’s okay to realize when it’s over. It won’t be easy. I won’t sit here and try to tell you that it will be. Be brave. Be strong and courageous. Be patient in understanding that this is not God’s only plan for you. Everything truly does happen for a reason and if we’re patient to see what that is, we won’t be disappointed.