Love diary

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I didn't discover love untl I was seventeen. And when I say I didn't discover love, I don't just mean in the romantic sense of the word. I mean I'd never really felt love before. 2

Someone once said to me, you can't love someone else until you love yourself. They weren't being philosophical, they were giving me advice. 3

I spent most of my later teenage years on my friends couch. I will always realise the importance of a good friend. A good friend with a leather couch, and an understanding Mother.4

My first love was what seeems like a lifetime, but was actually 8 years ago. We discovered everything together, love, sex, and heart-break. In that order. 5

I remember being completely euphorically happy, and safe, and on that other planet you live on. 6

And I remember how it ended. We were too wrapped up in each other he had realised, we were young and therefore should be free. Or at least that's what the song says.7

So we ended it, or he ended it but I agreed. And of course it tore me apart. It was my first love and first heart-break. I cried for weeks, ate chocolate, wrote poetry and listened to gilry angst music. And then one day I woke up and suddenly it was o.k. I could face the world again.8

We tried to be friends, but I just wanted to touch him everytime I saw him. I was like a fat person in a bakery. Sometimes it's better to remove the temptation, as I have recently discovered again.9

Isn't it funny how we make the same mistakes over in our lives. The definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and expect different results. I thinnk we are all guilty of this in love.10

The next time I fell in love was nice.That's the word i would pick, not amazing, or dramatic. Just plain nice. I'm not sure if I was really in love or not. But I cared a lot and felt very loved. I accidentally told him when I was drunk actually. Then I cried and threw up. (It was prom) But it turned out he loved me too, so it all ended well. (Apart from the throwing up)11

We broke up because I simply wasn't in love with him anymore. I was a little confused about it all because I was thinking of moving in with him. So I actually contemplated the choice, move in, or break up. This decision would come back to bite me on the ass later in my love life. 12

The next significant person in my life taught me about a different kind of love. Unconditional, real life, trust and caring. Not a romantic soulmate thing at all. But something more real than that. Something more basic. I at first mistook this as romantic, I mean we were in a relationship so it's understandable. I declared my love for him one night, and he didn't reciprocate. Everyone say Awkward...13

A while later it all ended, he told me he could never fall in love with me, and some other badly formed words that I have since forgiven him for. 14

He came round to my house a couple of weeks later to talk things through, and he cried. He ultimately really valued our friendship and didn't want to lose me altogether. He knew he'd hurt me and needed to be forgiven for it .15

So I got over that heartache pretty fast, mostly because I appreciated the honesty, and realised I wasn't losing but gaining. I also realised I might not have really been in love with him either, I'd just confused those feelings of love and caring about a person with romantic love. 16

I have since realised love comes in many forms. I am happy to report I love and am loved by many people in different ways. And most importantly in the midst of falling in and out of love in relationships, I have come to love myself and all the people around me, who I surround myself with and try to show it as much as I can, even though it's still difficult for me to express sometimes. 17