falling in love

It's been said that we really only fall in love with three people in our lifetime.

Yet it is said that we need each of these loves for different reasons. 

Often our first is when we are young. It is the "idealistic love"; the one that seems like the fairytales we are all read as children. It is a love that looks right. 

I can tell you this one is such epic truth, it's screaming out from the hidden memories of my past. This one will seem hard, but it is nothing compared to what is to come. To describe my first relationship from an outside point of view replays in my mind over and over "You looked like the perfect couple, Barbie & Ken". And i couldn't argue this. We did look like the perfect couple, but it wasn't real, it wasnt a forever love, it was only an image we projected, not with malice or lies, but we where both young and 'in love'. But it was only the beginning, for both of us. So much to each learn about ourselves still. 

The second is supposed to be our "hard love"; the one that teaches us lessons about who we are and how we want or need to be loved. Sometimes its unhealthy, unbalanced or narcissistic even. It is the love that we wished was right. The one we fight so hard for & bend ourselves in half trying to make work. 

Again, I can write you a beautiful tragic love story of this very nature, one of innocent, unconditional, soul crushing love. It is an epic love story, but without the happy ending. From an outside point of view, nobody could understand it other than us, we where two demons playing with fire, having the time of our lives & falling in love in a way he wasn't ready or prepared for & that ended in a way I never saw coming. It taught me strength I never knew I had, forgiveness I never thought i was capable of, it made me hard, closed off, reckless & distraught for a time, but through the learning & healing of it, it allowed me to find a stillness within myself that I never knew I had. There is still a tender place in my heart that will be there I think until the end of time, a small bruise of longing for what never was, a pulse of unfinished business. The mention of his name pushes and pulls at me in a hundred ways & when I try to put it into words, even to myself, I find that words fail. For me, this terrifies me. My biggest fear in life used to be ending up alone. Now my biggest fear I have is meeting someone who is everything I never knew I ever wanted & not being able to love them enough, not being able to give them enough of myself. I am so scared of my heart still being attached to this almost love, the love that never quite had its time. I will be stuck in a time that does not exist & miss out on an epic love. 

The third is the love we never saw coming. The one that usually comes dressed as all wrong for us & that destroys any lingering ideals we clung to about what love is supposed to be.

It's the love that just feels right.

Maybe we don't all experience these loves in this lifetime. Maybe none of you can relate, but perhaps thats just because you aren't ready to. Maybe we need a whole lifetime to learn, or maybe if we're lucky it only takes a few years. The days and months following my last relationship where some of the darkest moments of my life. So for me, the thought of my next relationship, scares the absolute life out of me. I envy those people who fall in love just once & remain so passionately in love their whole lives.

Some believe they are the lucky ones. But I disagree. I think that those who make it to their third love are the lucky ones.

They are the ones who have fought on courageously, ever faithful in their pursuit of love, despite the shattered pieces of their broken hearts scattered on the floor, despite the roaring doubts in their minds convincing them that they are too broken, too hard to love. 

But they aren't too broken, they aren't hard to love ; it's just a matter of finding someone who loves the same way you do. 

And maybe there is something special about our first love & something heartbreakingly unique about our second, but trust me when I say the third will be worth it. Worth all of the endless nights you lay awake clutching at your chest, willing your heart to beat another day, worth all of the tears that soaked your pillows every night, worth each moment you doubted that you would ever be happy again. 

He will be the one you never saw coming
The one that takes your breath away
That looks at you & sees you
The one that lasts 

I promise you.