He is beautiful, violent, passionate, tender, heartbreaking, narrow between laughter and tears, between happiness and dismay, between solidity and instability. The first love is strong, untouchable, imperishable, indestructible. It takes us through engaging emotions, tickles our hearts, brightens our eyes, gives meaning to our lives. And then it collapses. At once.
Here is what I wrote (a long time ago) to define my first love, once it had spread to pieces:
A languid look. A seductive smile. The first kiss. The life that lights up. The first signs of tenderness. A complicity that flourishes. The first time. The messages. Letters.The love that overflows from everywhere. Life that becomes magic. The bewitching looks. Passionate hugs. The sincere and touching words. Sensual caresses. The many calls. Reunion at the station. The height of happiness. Travel. Laughs. The cries. Jealousy. Screams. We embrace and get tired. Breaking. We hurt each other. We tear each other apart. The hurtful words. We remain friends. We meet again. We’re sleeping together. It does not work. We draw a line. We are depressed. We send messages to each other. We keep in touch. We insult each other. We forget ourselves. We do not care. We miss each other. We talk again. We meet again. It does not work. We hate each other. We send messages back. We cry again. We pretend. We hate each other. We disappear.
Reading this text again, I tell myself that it is a good summary of first love. So why is he so strong, so brutal? Why do we have so much trouble drawing a line under it?
The first “
First love is synonymous with discovery. We learn with him, we advance, we build step by step and this, without any means of comparison, since he is the first. In future relationships, we always return to this first love because we do not forget it, it remains stuck in a corner of our head, whether we like it or not. And this is what makes all the beauty and all the magic of these first emotional emotions: with first love, we cannot compare, because we cannot afford it. History is to be written: Our History. And what a joy to invent the novel together, as a couple. Discover every day what love is, what it is to feel your heartbeat so hard that you have the impression that he would like to escape, to dream of the other, to feel the lack unbearable when he is far from us.
Innocent obstacles
The first love is passionate because it is strewn with obstacles: distance, studies, internships, parents … We compare ourselves to Romeo and Juliet, we complain: ” I hate my mother, I want to die, why doesn’t she want me to go to sleep with you tonight ??? !!!! ” And if I laugh half as I write this sentence, I can tell you that a few years ago, when I said it, I felt like my life was meaningless, I was helpless, empty, in tears. I did not see the interest of my weeks if I was not rewarded the weekend, by going to see my lover. Everything takes an incredible and disproportionate proportion. And these small obstacles ultimately keep the couple alive, because one has the impression of fighting constantly for the other and even if one suffers from it, the couple is constantly spiced up.
A big step
The first love marks the end of childhood and the arrival in the adult world. We are finally in a pivotal period where we are still looking for ourselves. Where innocence is still present and where reality is gradually knocking on our door. First love is therefore the transition between these two very distinct worlds, this is also why it remains anchored in memory.
The reference
Even when it’s over, even when it’s been ten years since we saw him again… Le premier amour is one of our references because it built us. In a positive or negative way, by the way. In any case, we come out of this History grown up, we know that we will not make the same mistakes again, we know what we want now and above all, what we never want again. For example, if you came across an extremely jealous and possessive man, you will be able to spot them later and not reproduce the same error. So all the relationships that follow first love are, in one way or another, compared to it.
An idealization of reality
First love is a fantasy, an idea that one has of ideal love. The first love is extremely strong because we love Love. We refer to the clichés of romantic films and we try to identify and even reproduce the same acts. Kissing under a fountain, making love in a creek, running in a wheat field holding hands, jumping in each other’s arms at the station, yelling ” I love you ” at in the middle of a crowd … In short, we literally don’t care about the eyes of others, we are “one”. Therein lies the difference. The first love is not the result of the sum 1 + 1, it includes the two personalities in a passionate fusion.
The first love represents eternal youth, the innocence that one would like to find forever. It embodies emotional purity, it is unique.
A shocking break
When it collapses, one has the impression of losing everything suddenly, like that, in one word. Life loses its sweet taste, and it’s hard to move on. Especially for the one who got dumped and who did n’t really expect it. So often, we try to see each other again, we want feelings to come back, for History to resume its course. But no. It’s really over, and innocence has evaporated with it. We have grown, we can feel it in us. And that hurts. Like a human who transforms into a mutant (yes we see that in the movies), we suffer from sudden change, as if our body and our mind are mutating too.
And then over time, sometimes a lot of time, we look back at this idyll while remembering memories, a touch of nostalgia in the hollow of the heart. But we know full well that it could not have worked for good and that we had valid reasons for putting an end to our novel.
