The one that actually lasts
My friend recently sent me something that was posted on social media and I instantly became overcome with feelings and emotions.
It said:
It’s been said that we really only fall in love with three people in our lifetime.
Yet, it’s said that we need each of these loves for a different reason.
Often our first is when we are young, high school even. It’s the idealistic love; the one that seems like the fairytales we are all read as children.
It’s a love that looks right.
The second is supposed to be our hard love; the one that teaches us lessons about who we are and how we often want or need to be loved.
Sometimes it’s unhealthy, unbalanced or narcissistic even.
It’s the love that we wished was right.
And the third is the love we never see coming. The one that usually comes dressed as all wrong for us and 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; but perhaps that’s just because we aren’t ready to.
Possibly maybe we need a whole lifetime to learn or maybe if we’re lucky it only takes a few years.
And there may be those people who fall in love once and find it passionately lasts until their last breath.
Someone once told me they are the lucky ones; and perhaps they are.
But I kinda think that those who make it to their third love are really the lucky ones.
They are the ones who are tired of having to try and whose broken hearts lay beating in front of them wondering if there is just something inherently wrong with how they love.
But there’s not; it’s just a matter of if someone loves in the same way that they do or not.
And maybe there’s something special about our first love, and something heartbreakingly unique about our second…but there’s also just something about our third.
The one we never see coming.
The one that actually lasts.
The one that shows us why it never worked out before.
And it’s that possibility that makes trying again always worthwhile, because the truth is you never know when you’ll stumble into love.
As I read this tears ran down my face. I have felt the first two loves one from high school and one with many many many lessons. The part where it says “the love we wished was right” woah did that hit home.How many times did you wish the crazy, life lesson love would have been the right one? For me, I wanted that more than ever.
But want to know the most freeing part of that piece being over in your life? You get to make room for the third love, your final love, the love that is so unexpected.
I think I can speak for many girls when we say we have hung onto the second love for too long only hoping that it was worth it and that fairly tale from the first love would come alive in the second… but it never did, it never was supposed to. Instead, it was supposed to teach you something.
At first, the lessons don’t seem to exist only the longing pain to be with that person and just hoping it would work out. Everyone would tell you one day you would say enough was enough but that day didn’t seem to come for you for a long time. Then one day you decide just out of the blue that you are done longing for that love anymore, that you are finally ready for your third and final love.
When I realized it is was the day I started to love myself, respect myself and know what I deserved. It was the day I realized that enough was enough and that I deserved more. The only way I can describe it was free. Yes free, I was free from tears and pain; I was free from lies and longing for another opportunity.
I now get to make room for that third love, you know that love you see others have, that love you really wished you had. You deserve it but you have to allow yourself to let go of the second love first. I may not have it right now but I know it will be worth it.
