I Saw My First Love Again After 5 Years, And Realized I Was Wrong About Him

He was dressed to the nines. I wasn't surprised: he always was. He wore his hair slightly spiked in the front. Again, I wasn't surprised. He was exactly 23 minutes late but when he arrived, he looked at me with piercing blue eyes, and I smiled, a lot. Yet again, I wasn't surprised. It was always like that.

He was my first love, and some things never change.

Even though we had spent five years apart, we immediately went back to how we were before. We went back to a time where we meant everything to each other, and before life got in the way of us.

Three hours felt like 20 minutes. Before we knew it, the bar was closing down, and sending us out into the cold winter air. As we walked out into the night, we turned back into the people who had arrived a few hours earlier.

Our night ended with a single kiss on the cheek, as well as a promise to see one another soon. We both knew that was never going to happen.

People say that time heals all. That may be true, but time does not have the capability to change people. Even after all this time, he could not undo his wrongs. He still couldn't give me everything I needed. He would never be able to be there like I wanted him to be.

At the same time, I will never be able to take back how I acted after he left. I will never be able to provide him with all the things he needs. I will never be able to fit completely into his world like he wanted me to. I will never understand him like he needed me to.

After all these years, we were still not the people we needed one another to be. People never change. As much as I wanted things to be different, they weren't. Our personalities won't change, and I have to accept that.

Seeing him again after all these years helped recreate my definition of love. Love comes down to caring about another human with or without their presence in our lives. It means truly wanting them to be happy, even if that happiness isn't provided directly from us. Love means learning to put aside our longings, in the hopes that they ultimately reach contentment.

Sometimes, loving someone can mean breaking our own hearts in the hope that it will do some good for the other person. We must set the other person free, so someone else can love them as much as they deserve to be loved.

Sometimes, two people's love is so extraordinary that they are not able to be physically together. Their love is so strong that it strains the relationship and eventually leads to its demise. Sometimes we just have to learn to love someone from afar.

We never forget our first love. More importantly, we should never forget what their love has taught us.