I just finished watching the movie “LOL” staring Miley Cyrus (AKA my favourite person ever) and it had me thinking back to my “teenage” (I use this term lightly as I am only 18) love.

There is such a huge stigma around boys and girls who fall in love at such a young age. You hear people say “oh they’re not in love. They’re too young to know what love is” or “it won’t last long, no teenage relationships do”.

Although I was never someone who was in and out of relationships during high school, and I wasn’t the girl who always fell in love with every boy that spoke to her, I still get offended when I hear these comments, because I was once that “silly teenager”. 

I fell deeply and madly in love with a boy (who shall be named Nick) when I was just 14 years old. I can already hear so many people saying “you thought you were in love”. Yes, I did think I was in love, however even after 4 years, looking back today, my views have not changed.

So here is my not so little love story:

I was in Year 9 (so I was 14), and this boy Nick (he was a year older than me) started talking to me. This led to us speaking day in and out over Facebook and text. I really liked him, we had a lot in common and it honestly felt as though we had known each other forever, when in reality it was only a couple of weeks.

I still remember the day that he sent me the first love heart (this was a massive deal).

After another weekend of non-stop messaging, we finally made plans to meet each other at school, so we could sit down and talk to each other in person (very twelvie I know, but let’s put this aside).

We met, we hugged (also twelvie), and I clearly remember I was so embarrassed because I was holding those sesame snap things, and I dropped them.

Anyways, we chatted during the lunch break, and agreed to meet again at second lunch. This ended up happening every day of the school week. We would decide on a break time to meet, and sit there in our own little bubble, never short of anything to say.

As the weeks passed, I fell in love. This was nothing like I had ever experienced before. Nick was head over heels for me, and only me. He made me feel like I was on top of the world and that no one could take my place. He had a way with words, and still possesses this skill today.

After a few more weeks, “I love you” was a phrase that I became very familiar with. It gives me butterflies now just thinking about it.

The Christmas holidays came near, and the two of us were going our separate ways over the break. We decided to keep talking, and were planning on making things more serious once the new year came around.

A few weeks into the holidays, and we were over. The night that he called things off with me, was the night that I felt how heavy a broken heart could really be. It was the night I cried so much, that when I woke up the next morning, my eyes were still red and puffy. It was the first time that I had ever felt that way. That night hurt so much that I am on the brink of crying right now just writing about it.

However, this would become a feeling I would associate with Nick.

The school year came around again. Nick and I started talking, then he would “break up” with me. A month would pass, we were back on. Another month, and we were done. Nick and I never dated, we were simply a “thing”.

Whenever we got back together, it felt as though nothing had happened. We were more in love with each other than what we were before. I think this is what fucked me up most. I always expected him to come back to me. I always expected him to tell me he loved me again.

At some point during Year 10, Nick decided that we couldn’t be friends. This was the longest time that we went without speaking to one another. I got a boyfriend, and we acted like we didn’t know one another.

It was the end of Year 10 when Nick and I started speaking again. I felt as though I had missed out on so much of his life. That night we spent hours catching up on what one another had been doing.

At the time I was talking to another boy who would soon become my boyfriend. We were dating for almost 3 months (it is now the start of Year 11) before Nick and I started to get close again. I could definitely feel myself drifting away from my boyfriend at the time, and more and more in love with Nick so I broke up with my boyfriend. Nick and I were back together within a week.

“No matter how many people try and tell me otherwise, I will always be drawn back to you”

“This time it will be different”, he would promise. We were both exactly where we needed to be. We had matured, and we could both be together. We were going to be together. He was in Year 12 and when he finished, he was going to stay in Toowoomba so we could stay close. It was all planned out.

He sent me so many messages (which I deleted not long ago and wish I didn’t for the purpose of this blog), telling me how much he loved me, and how he had never felt this way about anyone before. He said that there was a reason we were still getting back together after 2 years, and that reason was more than love.

“I think that’s so special, the fact that one single person has the ability to draw out a completely different being from someone else”

“This time is different” I would tell my friends who knew exactly what I had coming for me. Despite all of the times they warned me, I stayed, and I had my heart broken, yet again. This is when all of the messages changed. This time he just couldn’t do it. It wasn’t the right time. He had to focus more on his friends rather than a girl.

All of his reasons were valid. I didn’t hate him. I hated myself.

A month or so later we were back together. He said he was stupid for doing what he did last time. He was so sorry for putting me through everything again.

“I don’t know what it is Jordie, but there’s something about you in your school uniform that makes you look so beautiful. I just can’t pick it”

A couple of weeks later we got into an argument about me talking to other boys while we were on the mend. However, he forgave me and we planned on seeing each other at an after party to talk about things. I got there and was ignored by him the entire night.

Finally, I pulled him aside and we spoke. I was expecting us to make up, like we always did. Instead, he told me I couldn’t be forgiven. He wasn’t ready for commitment. I cried, right there in front of him.

A couple of days later, he told me he didn’t love me anymore.

My stomach dropped. I couldn’t breathe. I felt as though I had been sucked out of my own body. I wasn’t there. I wasn’t ‘Jordie’ anymore.

I was so fucking angry. That’s not how it was meant to work. He was meant to say that he loved me, that he was sorry. We were meant to be together.

To this day, he has never said he loves me again. We have never gotten back together. He well and truly fell out of love with me, and I find that so hard to comprehend, even today, 2 years on.

The months following Nick telling me that he didn’t love me anymore, I just remember crying. Every single night from 1 to 3 hours. I would read the messages that he had sent me in the past over and over again.

I tried to tell myself that it was inevitable. That I should have seen it coming. I wondered if I did some things differently, we would be together right now. I wondered if I was more like him, then maybe he would have wanted me around more. Maybe I should have dedicated more time to him.

Two quotes that regularly went through my head, and to this day are my favourite quotes, go like this:

“He said he was scared of commitment, but he had tattoos all over his skin. I guess he didn’t see me as a work of art, or maybe he didn’t think the pain was worth it”

“I asked you if you still loved me and you hesitated. That’s the moment I knew I lost you forever“

My friends and I always joke about the boys we had things with in the past, yet somehow, even the girls that developed a hatred for Nick, know that sometimes you just can’t go there with me.

Sometimes talking about the time I was drunk and called him, not realising I didn’t hang up, and left a five minute voice mail on his phone telling the girls about how I was going to marry him and have a wonderful home with him and was reciting our children’s names is okay to bring up in conversation, but other times it’s not.

Sometimes talking about how much of a dick he was to break my heart so many times is okay, and sometimes it’s not (however they do like to remind me of this pretty often).

Even today, 2 years after being “together” with Nick, my closest friends still warn me not to go there.

“Just because you love somebody doesn’t mean that you’re right for each other”

“He’s not good for you”

“You need a like minded person. You’re going places and you need someone who will go with you” 

These are the girls that make me change from one shirt to another because the second one makes me look better. They are the girls that tell me if what I am saying/doing is out of line, and if it is I’ll stop immediately.

Yet, when it comes to Nick, their opinion is basically nothing. The girls that have my heart and wellbeing as their top priority, are irrelevant to me all of a sudden.

As one of them said, “first loves always end with unfinished business. It’s why you never get over them”.

And that’s just it. When it comes down to it, if Nick was to approach me today wanting to get back together and try again, I would be silly enough to say yes. 

After the entire experience, the biggest lesson I have learnt is forgiveness. I hold no grudges against Nick, and he does not hold any towards me.

I didn’t post this for people to go “oh wow, Nick is such a horrible person”. I’m sure that if he was to tell the story it would be quite different.

I posted this because the second biggest lesson I have learnt, is to create my own happiness. I was so dependent on Nick to ensure that I was happy.

Now, I’m happy by myself and I think that is one of the best traits I have. It means that when another boy comes into my life, I will be able to enter and exit the relationship feeling as though I lost nothing.

As Carrie Bradshaw once said,

“Don’t forget to fall in love with yourself first”

This whole experience is something that I think defines me. It is part of me, and I think it’s only fair that I share it with you, so you can have a better understanding of me as a person.