By: Claire

I used to be addicted to mango flavored Juul pods and assholes that wouldn’t flush the toilet when they got up to leave the morning after we had met. I sat in my dorm room trying to sober up, but I couldn’t. I tried to compose the perfect “get out of my life you selfish asshole” text, but I couldn’t. My demons hated me as much as they hated allowing me to fall for a kind person who would treat me the way I should have been treated the whole time.

I couldn’t live with my life. It was going at such a speed that I couldn’t even see the trees and people passing by me in their cars. I was hanging on so tightly to the steering wheel in fear of letting the car slow down and going back to you. Because that’s all I ever wanted to do. To go back to you.

“It was the worst pain but the best of times.”

I sat with you on my porch and drank sangria until I couldn’t see straight. We watched movies until 4 am. You told me that you had feelings for me and this was the first time I had ever felt like the world was perfectly in my favor. We had sex, which was something new to me. It wasn’t new to you and I knew this. I trusted you, and I regret that.

I just want to say one thing that I think we need to address, and that is giving a shit about how the other person will feel when they are the one broken up with. Inevitably, feelings will be twisted, tears will be shed, and hearts will be broken. But a 15 second phone call, “I’m sorry it’s just not going to work”, or making it apparent that you moved on with another person a week later is just not right. It is disrespectful, and the person you spent a certain amount of time with, and at one point gave a shit about, should NOT have their hearts ripped out even more so than they were when you told them “it’s over.”

“To physically have to watch the first person that ever meant anything to you and ever taught you anything about love, move on with a girl right in front of your eyes is excruciating.”

We dated a year, but to me it meant something. You shattered my petite body not because you broke up with me, but because of how you handled it less than a week later. To physically have to watch the first person that ever meant anything to you and ever taught you anything about love, move on with a girl right in front of your eyes is excruciating.

I know I’m not the only girl who feels this way and this is why I want to bring it up. Please listen to me if you are considering breaking up with her. Watching him post a picture with another girl, taking her to formals in front of my teary eyes, and breaking up with me over a 5 minute conversation in his friend's dorm room really tore up my depressive tendencies. I feel that there is a lot of shame surrounding “feeling sad about a breakup” and girls can’t openly hurt without being called crazy. I know for a fact he told people “yeah I can’t believe I ever dated her” or the classic “I never cared about her.” I don’t care if you tell people that, I just don’t want to find out. More importantly, leaving the “I’m sorry, I don’t have feelings for you anymore,” out of the breakup would also be considerate. That stung the most.

“It’s “take 10 shots and fuck another guy” and were supposed to then feel better.”

Call me crazy, but after a year with the first guy I had ever dated, lost my virginity to, and brought home to my family… my heart hurt a little. The least he could have done was walk me to the door of the friends dorm room. That was too much to ask for.

“My first love was my most painful lesson.”

We live and we learn. I’ve been in a few minor relationships since that big dagger. I’m now more mentally calm and in a really great relationship with the first guy I told I ever loved and the first guy to respond “I love you” back. Bandaids hide signs of pain. They don’t heal the tears. Eventually cuts become scars and scars fade away. You might stumble and get a bruise and have to wait until the purple turns blue and then turns yellow and then finally your leg is back to normal. Basically, there are bumps that you’ll encounter for the rest of your life. Right now I don't have any band aids, scars, or bruises. One time I was eighteen years old and blonde and heartbroken because my only source of happiness was you. Can I hug eighteen year old me? I never got an apology but I moved on and that’s what I deserved. I know there will be a day where I’ll stumble over a bump in the road, but I know that this time I’ll be able to get back up and have someone there to help me bandage up my knee. My first love was my most painful lesson.