discuss your first love & first kiss.
bleh. remind me again why i picked this topic? such a touchy subject for some – and honestly it can be a little revealing, am’i’right?.
i think i should talk about the kiss first – since it came before my first love. my first kiss was a block away from my house – with a boy name stephen – who i had some weird crush on. he was younger than me, we both had braces, and it was incredibly awkward. did i mention we were in the middle of the street, in broad daylight, in the middle of the afternoon? yeah – weird. i was…hmmm..12? in the moment i remember being so excited and i thought “i really like this guy”…looking back now – my gosh what was i thinking? a first kiss is so special, it’s something most girls remember forever, and now that i’m older i can’t help but think…him, really?! man, if i could go back in time and give myself a talking to. and for the record – this bro went on to kiss two of my other friends. so really i wasn’t that special. gah.
my first love was – well it is still hard to define. mostly because i’ve felt like a few guys could have been that first “love”. there was my best friend – who i was “in love with” for years (you know – classic tell them on graduation night story but you remain friends). then there was my first “real” (long-distance) boyfriend who i was “in love with” and we planned our life out – and he cheated – and we broke up. i was devastated. then there was my last boyfriend – who was also long distance – and i thought we would get married too – i think out of all of them, the last was my first.
something about that relationship grounded me. not to put on rose colored glasses, but the relationship held a lot of good and was a beautiful learning experience. God used him to break down a lot of my walls, and to speak a lot of truth into my life in regards to bitterness, anxiety, and letting go. he pursued me (as much as he could long distance) and made me feel special, we prayed together, fasted, and encouraged each others spiritual journeys. there were bad days, weeks, months, mixed in there too – if we’re being completely honest. he wasn’t always the best, and neither was i. yet somewhere along the road i fell in love, deeply in love. i don’t think he really knew that – until after we broke up. he was so…many things to me. i actually found an old comment from him that read, “i’ll be your safety, and your shelter, and your home”. ah – how sad.
that last relationship taught me a lot. it also instilled fear and frustration towards love.
i’ve come to the conclusion that i love deeply. sometimes too deep and too reckless, and it means that my “healing time” is more challenging than others.
i feel that, in some way, i loved him too much, too deeply, and it was incredibly foolish.
i really believed that he would be my husband one day – so when that wasn’t in the cards anymore, my heart was incredibly hurt.
so now on to the discussion i suppose.
what have i learned from these experiences?
from life?
from love?
from broken love?
love is challenging.
love changes.
love grows and diminishes.
but love is beautiful.
and worth it.
and scary.
and it can leave you feeling full or hollow.
love is a scary thing for me now.
and i don’t want it to be.
and i’m working through it.
but scary still.
sharing my life with someone is something i desire – but also have no idea how to approach it anymore. how do i know WHO to give my heart away to or WHEN?
scripture tells us “above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do comes from it” (proverbs 4:23 NIV)
– i did not guard my heart well. i let it run wild and free; and in the process i learned the lesson that love can be painful and you can get yourself in too deep when you are not guarding your heart.
scripture also tells us “i adjore you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases.” (song of solomon 8:4 ESV)
– i awoke love long before it pleased. i chased love; and i felt the consequences. God shares this with us as a warning, as a guideline, because He loves us so much that He wants to spare our hearts from unneeded pain.
while i do not look at my loving deeply as a bad quality (i consider it one of my favorites), it definitely presents challenges and often painful lessons learned.
i’ve learned that life, love, and broken love, are all beautiful things.
they can all bring joy, happiness, pain, and frustration; but that is just life in general.
i’m happy to have the memories and learned experiences.
i’m happy to have had the opportunity to love who i’ve loved.
i’ve been changed by it.
i’ve grown from it.
even when i have my moments of why on earth did i…. i’m still thankful.
and there is my attempt and wrapping up that incredibly random stream of thoughts.
also – man i was pretty dang honest all up in there.
50 points for Gryffindor!
I think your first kiss sounds cute haha! Mine was nearly as awkward and weird, although it was at night in some slushy snow, and I remember it felt like jello–I 'broke up' with him 2 days later 😉 Oh, those days…
I'm sure it took a lot of courage to write this post. It sounds like your last relationship was full of love, and I can understand how now, love may feel scary and vulnerable. It is so vulnerable! But it's also a really beautiful thing. I know when the time comes, God will show you the right man for you 🙂
you are flipping gorgeous! such a incredibly awkward topic lol. happy you learned so much through all of lifes lessons 🙂
haha! love the first kiss story!!! my first kiss was with a family friend & he also kissed my sister! so yeah, that was kinda weird. i think he kissed us years apart. but still. ew.
i had two really big relationships that ended very badly. and it hurt me a lot because i love deeply too. and i felt the same way afterwards….i guarded myself so closely for years and didn't let myself get close to anyone. and i wondered the same thing….how will i ever be able to give my whole life to someone? it IS scary.
so, please refrain from wanting to hit me in the face…cause i'm about to sound cliche. but you really will just KNOW. it sounds stupid & especially when you feel like you've known before with other guys. but there isn't really an explanation….when i met my now husband we were friends for a year and a half before we started dating. and i didn't know at first…but after that friendship fostered and we got to know each other's hearts….i just knew. that doesn't mean it wasn't scary or hard or that i didn't doubt. but deep deep down in my heart of hearts i knew that we could glorify God better together than apart.
those two verses….seriously are ones that just spoke to my heart over & over again! i love deeply and so i had to be extra careful to guard my heart and thoughts and daydreams. and i had to be extra careful not to chase love…and awaken it. just like you said.
love your last sentence 🙂 HP!
I think love is almost always scary because of the vulnerability aspect. Especially after we've been hurt. That's why proverbs says guard your heart. At least that's why I think it does.
Oh, the lessons we give to the youth on love – young love… how easy we give our hearts…
I don't even remember the guy who gave me my first kiss. It was so random at a party & like you said, you don't realize how important it is until you 'grow up'… shame..
My first kiss was with Nate. But my first love was not Nate. I was in love with my boyfriend before him – a guy I thought I was going to marry. When he broke up with me I was crushed!! But – like you said with your first love – God used it in amazing ways!
Is it possible to guard your heart too much? Because, if there is, I think that is me.
I've never dated. Never. I've been out with a boy before where it was just me and him, but it was never defined as a date. We were always just friends.
As much as I would love a relationship (I am 25 after all and do have the desire (some days) to get married.) the idea of going out on a "first" date and letting someone in on my life, scares the shit out of me. (Sorry for the language, folks.) But, seriously. I've been surrounded by divorce in my life and I've watched friends move from one relationship to the other as quick as a flash.
For every reason I can think of to be in a relationship, I can think of one to not be. But, still I struggle with knowing whether my desire to get married is actually God given or just something I've imagined and thought up in my own mind because I'm constantly surrounded by it.
Whew. I'm stopping there because that got a little heavy. Sorryboutit. 🙂
It's so true that sometimes 'mistakes' are merely lessons we needed to learn. Those moments that we sometimes wish we hadn't gone through helped us to grow. So it wasn't a waste at all…
Um, so I totes thought this was a Friday post at first. 🙂 I actually feel like I might get two in one week, actually. Or maybe that's just wishful thinking. 🙂
Anyway, I loved reading this post! I, like Jess, have never dated before. I've never really known what romantic love looks like when not in terms of relationships I've seen but never been a part of–does that make sense? And while I do hope that I'll experience it someday, it's amazing and a blessing to learn from others.
That said, I loved reading what you had to say about guarding your heart and being patient and learning from every relationship/friendship that you have. There is so much to be learned and I'm so fortunate to have friends like you to learn from and with. 🙂
My first kiss was during spin the bottle in 6th grade. Talk about not romantic… but my first "real" kiss after that (my senior year of high-school) was pretty romantic and movie-ish. He was also my first "love." He cheated and it sucked and it wrecked me for a long long time.
I always say that love is both the best and most complicated thing in the world–which makes sense seeing as it's 2 imperfect people trying to do life together. I realized after finding my true love and getting married that I definitely had a jaded view of love the first time around. I expected perfection and I did not guard my heart. I put so much of myself into that relationship that I lost who I was in the process. It wasn't a fun experience, but I learned SO much from it.
This hit super close to home. I've been in 3 "serious" relationships including the one I'm in now but I'd say the second one was my first true love. The first was my high school sweetheart but the second was a boy I'd had 'feelings' for since the eighth grade and we didn't start dating until after high school. It was a tumultuous relationship with a lot of (too much) partying. All the haze led to an unstable relationship and he ended up cheating about 3 years in. We were supposed to get married. That shit messed me up for a really, really long time. I think, in some ways, I am still working through the aftermath of that betrayal. I've since forgiven him but there will always be something inside of me that will remember.
The relationship I'm in now is the healthiest, most stable relationship I've ever been in. Being older probably has a lot to do with that as well! I'm not 100% if he'll be my last, but for now I like where I am and how the relationship works in my life for the better.
But, as I said, that second one… that was my first true love. I hate to admit this, but a very small, minuscule part of me will always, always love him. I jumped in wholeheartedly and ended up getting crushed. Big lesson learned and though it sucked at the time, I'm glad I went through it. It made me stronger and more independent.
What an adorably nerdy first kiss 🙂
And thank you for being brutally honest with your first love. You have such a beautiful heart and are so wise. I love learning from your raw posts that are filled with so much truth!
I love first kiss stories! I had a few pecks…mostly in the interest of giving cooties…but I consider my first real kiss the one I shared with my first real boyfriend.
I've always fallen fast and hard for guys. Even for the ones who didn't feel the same way. Pre-marriage was painful and full of heartbreak. But I'm grateful for it because I never would have attempted a relationship with my husband if I held back.