Life is funny sometimes. The right people put in your life…at the wrong time. Doors close, chapters end. You don’t open a closed door and you don’t reread that chapter. Then one day, you begin reminiscing as a new song plays on your playlist. You wonder if that person was in your life now if things would be different. Would you connect with on the level you did or would it be something much different?
I’ve heard and seen memes and articles about we only fall in love with 3 people in our lifetime. If you’ve read up on it, you will understand what I am about to reflect on. You will go through three loves, each to teach you something. Each has its own purpose.
Falling In Love the 1st Time: The Love that Looks Right – Maybe this is in high school or college. As it says, it is the first time you fall in love. It looks right and feels right in our inexperienced lives and in our inexperience with love. This is the fairytales we read about…or so we think. It “looks right.” It looks like we are told it should look or how we believe it should look. I remember this love. I’d like to think it happened twice, but if I’m being honest, it didn’t. I thought I loved my first girlfriend. Looking back, I adored her. I loved her. I cared for her. I was never in love with her. That first serious girlfriend, I loved her. I was in love with her. I gave everything to her…including myself. I still remember our first date. It went until the next morning. We connected or so I thought. It ended up being a total train wreck. I raised a child I never wanted for 3 years. From birth until she ripped him from my life. I didn’t want him in the beginning and then he was born and I fell in love. Even after we split up, I cared for him as any parent would. Losing him shattered me more than losing her. It also taught me that I did not want children (you will see how a lesson was not learned from this). As with that first love, it took some time to heal. Not so much from the heartbreak but from the betrayal, infidelity, and lies. During my time with her, I met and made friends with some amazing people. I also lost some friends. This is when I first met her. She picked me up off the floor. She pulled me out of my own self-destruction. I think she knew she was the rebound and it was nothing more. We stayed friends, however.
Falling In Love the 2nd Time: The Hard Love – If that isn’t an appropriate label for it. The HARD love and there is not a more accurate description for it. It’s the love that damn near kills you. It’s the one that teaches us lessons about who we are and what we want and need to be loved. What we will tolerate and what we won’t. This love will breach walls. It will destroy spirits and steal souls. It’s not much different than the first love, but we think it is. It’s a cycle. We think the ending will end differently, it doesn’t. It’s the same as before. We keep fighting for it though, even when we realize it’s unhealthy for us. I think there’s the drama aspect that keeps us addicted. It’s like a drug. We know it’s so bad for us, yet we just keep seeking it out. We keep using it. We want to make it work even when we should let it go. As an article says, “It’s the love that we wished was right.” I remember this one as well. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I never expected it. We were coworkers, then friends. Oddly enough, although we functioned as a couple it was never official. For 2 – 3 years we were a “non-relationship relationship.” We did everything a couple would do. This was the heartbreak that nearly killed me, literally. It took probably 4 years to move on from that one. She was everything I never needed or wanted. She took me for granted. She took advantage of my love. She never gave back in return what she was given from me. And there were kids involved, which made it much harder. Even to this day, we are still friends, however. I definitely learned a great deal about myself, what I wanted, what I didn’t want, what I would and would not tolerate. I grew from it. I put in the work, but I grew and now I know my worth. I know what I want and don’t want and what I will and will not tolerate. And then there was her. She picked me up out of my despair. She was there every time something went wrong. She took care of me, loved me, and, more than anything, she valued me. She was, yet again, the rebound. The person who wanted nothing more than to be in my presence that she allowed herself not to be treated the way she should be. We stayed friends until one night I felt pressured to enter into something I wasn’t ready for with her. I blew. I told her she would never be her (the 2nd love). We still talk occasionally. And I know the hurt I caused her that day. We’ve talked about it. Resolved it.
Falling In Love the 3rd Time: The Love that Lasts – I haven’t experienced this one yet. They, whoever they are, say that this is the one we never see coming. “The one that usually looks all wrong for us and that destroys any lingering ideals we clung to about what love is supposed to be.” Allegedly, this is the love that comes easy. Is that possible? This is supposed to be the love where we come together with someone and things just fit so perfectly. We are accepted for who we are. Nothing more, nothing less. “It isn’t what we envisioned our love would look like, nor does it abide by the rules that we had hoped to play it safe by. But still it shatters our preconceived notions and shows us that love doesn’t have to be how we thought in order for it to be true. This is the love that keeps knocking on our door regardless of how long it takes us to answer.” And this is where she comes in to play…
For over a decade there she’s been. Whether as friends, sexual partners, strangers, acquaintances, there she is. We don’t talk much anymore. Every now and again one of us might message the other. Then a song comes on the radio, or Spotify, or Pandora, or Amazon music and every memory floods back into existence. Words spoken and unspoken. Feelings felt and ones that haven’t been acknowledged, probably. She is not my “type.” At least not physically. But her soul is pure. It’s in those moments I wonder…if she’s the love that keeps knocking on my door. I try to envision us together and in my mind’s eye, I don’t see it. Then I remember us together. Is she supposed to be that 3rd love or was she just the right person at the wrong time back when. I don’t know that timing is any different now. She’s moved and I’m not in a place in my life where I am ready to explore leaving a career I have worked hard to build. She has kids, both of which I have known most of their lives. One I helped care for when he was a baby. As I said earlier, I don’t want kids. I don’t want to help parent someone else’s. I don’t want to be a step-parent. And that is something, I think, that will always get in the way of exploring any questions I have about her.
Is she the 3rd love or am I so desperate to find love that I have conjured some ridiculous notion that she is that 3rd love. I have been single for many years. I am content, mostly. I am not actively dating. I would love to find someone to settle down with and finish the rest of my life with. I’m not a spring chicken. I’m not old either, btw. I am almost 40 and would like to spend the rest of my existence with someone. The right someone. I think so many of her qualities I would look for in someone, but does that mean she’s the one or is she just a template for what I am seeking?
I don’t know that I believe we only have 3 loves in life. It’s a nice concept. What about those people who ha loved many? Only 3? In a lifetime, only 3? Is it true that you just know? Does love at first sight exist? I find that a hard concept to believe. To love someone means to know them. I’ve always believed I would know when the right person came into my life. Let’s be honest, I have picked toxic women in the past. Women that have made me feel like I am unworthy. I am not willing to go back to that, ever. I know my worth and my value. So does she. I wish I knew the answer to the many questions I have. I am not a seeker. I am not an explorer. And those don’t help my process.
I learned you don’t open closed doors and you don’t reread chapters already written with the intent of rewriting them. I don’t really believe in turning around to “try again.” Once it’s done, it’s done. Resolved or unresolved, it’s done. People are in the past for a reason. Exes are exes for a reason. Relationships didn’t work for a reason. I don’t believe in the “what ifs.” I find myself in a place of “what ifs” and it is chaotic because I’ve never been a “what if” kind of person. Doors should remained closed and chapters remained read.
I suppose, in the end, that 3rd love will come and I will know.
wanderingmindmindlesswandering 