A while back I remember reading an article about only really falling for three people in our lifetime. It stuck with me so of course I had to scroll down my timeline on Facebook to find it again. The article can be found on Elephant Journal. According to this article each love comes into our lives for a different reason:

1. Our first is when we are young, in high school even. It’s the idealistic love—the one that seems like the fairy tales we read as children.

2. 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. This is the kind of love that hurts, whether through lies, pain or manipulation.

3. The third is the love 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. This is the love that comes so easy it doesn’t seem possible. It’s the kind where the connection can’t be explained and knocks us off our feet because we never planned for it.

It’s very possible that everyone have not experienced three loves in their lifetime. Some people are lucky enough to find the one they will spend their lives with the first time love comes along. I believe I’ve come across my three but my order I’d say is just a little different.

At 15-years-old I met my first love. Although we went to the same school the first time I seen him was at a track-meet for my cousin. She was in college at the time so I had no clue that high school teams were going to be there. We made eye contact and he looked familiar to me but I didn’t realize who it was until I returned to school Monday. The funny thing about that is I let one of my friends, who happened to share my name, know I seen him. Turned out she kind of had a crush on him and wanted me to tell him for her. So I go up to him at lunch and was like my friend likes you. Because me and her have the same name he assumed it was me and laughed about it. From then on it was US. Before actually going for it I asked would she be okay with it and she said yes. I really hope she was because I felt bad and sometimes still do when thinking about it. I’d walk him to practice, go on double dates to TGIF and the movies, dress in the same colors and he was always welcomed in the house. This is the first and only boyfriend I had a song with. Till this day I still get excited when it comes on. My mom and family don’t like many people but this is the one guy I’ve ever dated that they’ve and still consider family. I’d say I’m still very much in love with my first love. Out of the 12 years I’ve known him, the ups & downs, the distance/time apart and the relationships I’ve had this is the one love I’ve never given up on.

This is where I’d switch things up.

I’d say my second love is technically supposed to be my third; the one I didn’t see coming. I can say I wasn’t in love with this one but I definitely loved him. Our relationship never felt forced. We went to the same college and though he used to see me around I never seen him. We started communicating on FB. He’d always called/FT me and within a week we became inseparable. This is the love that was my best friend; we did everything together. I grew into a woman with this love and got out of my comfort zone. He showed me what I wanted in a relationship but also in the end showed me what I also needed in a relationship, attention.

My third love was actually my second; the hard love.

Our second love can become a cycle, oftentimes one we keep repeating because we think that somehow the ending will be different than before. Yet, each time we try, it somehow ends worse than before.

He’s the one I met at 19 and found myself having a crush on him. He seemed nice until I seen the side I didn’t like. We stopped communicating because the disrespect wasn’t cool. He came back in my life around the time I was starting to give up on the relationship I was in. He came along and seemed like a different person. All the times he tried to return to my life this was the one time I believed everything he said to me. I may have thought this one was going to work out for the best but after getting pregnant things turned bad and almost 3 years later they haven’t gotten any better.

There may be emotional, mental or even physical abuse or manipulation—most likely there will be high levels of drama. This is exactly what keeps us addicted to this storyline, because it’s the emotional rollercoaster of extreme highs and lows and like a junkie trying to get a fix, we stick through the lows with the expectation of the high.

This is the love I battled with my family over. This is the love that ended some of my friendships because they didn’t like who I was becoming with him. This is the love that showed me I could have a super weak side but also a very evil side. This is the love that was unhealthy and taught me what I don’t want in a relationship and what I don’t want my son to grow up seeing.

Sure they say you get 3 loves in your lifetime but I’m still stuck on the first. Yes he was my high school sweetheart but he’s also the one that keeps finding away into my life. At one point I thought we wouldn’t even speak again. Now he’s turning into that third love; the one that just fits, my other half.

Now do we end up spending our lives with one of our 3 loves, I’m not sure but just like a fairytale, you have to wait and see how the story ends.