Illustration by Linde Vergeylen

I have fallen in love, not for the first time but the second. And it is because of your second love that you realise, that you can, indeed, fall in love again. That love is not a finite resource but that each and every relationship that you have is going to be entirely different.

 The term “in love” is ridiculously vague. I will never, ever love anyone the way I love my first love. I always knew this. I knew that the connection we shared was utterly irreplaceable but it is only recently that I’ve realised that this is neither rare nor sad. I don’t want to love anyone that way because that’s our way of loving. But what a rush it was, to meet someone new and feel entirely differently and yet still understand that this is also “in love”. Huh. 

We have our stupid, hilarious inside jokes and get each other’s humour perfectly. It would be ridiculous to try to compare the two loves and equally ridiculous not to acknowledge that I will probably fall in love a million more times before I meet the illustrious One. However, what I will say is this: falling in love for the second time will always have a special place in my heart because it’s when I almost literally had the light bulb realisation of its really not that deep. Nothing is precious therefore everything is. Falling in love is fucking mundane. I’ll do it every day for the rest of my life and, still,  no two times will ever even feel remotely similar. I’ve never felt the way I feel right now. And it’s so exciting and frivolous and grandiose and terrifying and comfortable and lovely.

 I truly did not believe everyone who told me when we broke up that I’ll meet someone else and fall in love again. It killed me because I knew I lost something I could never get back. The typical heartbreak virgin, I truly believed I would never love like that again. And in a way, I was partially right. But I was astonished and almost perturbed when I met a boy that I couldn’t stop thinking about, that made me laugh more than anyone I’ve ever met before. I love him in an entirely new way, in a way I wasn’t even aware that I could love and I’m so excited to discover all of these secret loves that have not yet revealed themselves, I just need to open my heart up to them.

And so I am in my era of second loves. I share a bed with a new person now, and this is sometimes daunting. Sometimes it feels like a betrayal to my first love to be so, so happy without him. But loving someone new doesn’t mean I love him any less. And I have also had to fall in love, once again, with this new self that I have become. I also feel guilty about this at times too, being this new person that utterly rejects the ideals that helped me survive my teenage years. But I make myself happy now, I like who I am now, even if I’m still getting used to her. And I still love who I was, I am so fucking grateful to her and parts of her still exist within me. We all have infinite types of love living inside it us and I strongly urge you to celebrate them all. The presence of one love does not mean the absence of another, it merely means your heart has grown bigger.