This Valentine’s day my plans involved spending time with my friends and appreciating how great they are, but it has made me more reflective than normal. And so, my mind wandered back to my first love who, three and a half years later, is my biggest heartbreak to date. It feels weird because it’s almost like looking back at another life where I was younger but also more naive and oblivious of what was to come. But whilst it was horrible to go through, I’m glad it happened. So, without further ado, here’s what my biggest heartbreak taught me.
1. It made me want to be a better person. After that breakup, I buried myself in A levels and although I think keeping myself busy with work helped, it wasn’t until I came to university two years later when I realised I’d become more motivated to do things and make the most of my single life. I took up sport, I took up more hobbies and I went on holidays solo. Now, I can safely say that I’m a much more well-rounded and independent person today which will help me massively on my year abroad. I didn’t want that breakup to define me and I’m glad I didn’t let it.
2. It taught me how to deal with disappointment gracefully. It makes me laugh how naive I was back then because I loved him enough to think that it was going to last forever. When it didn’t work out, I was in pieces and I genuinely thought it was the end of the world. But as the years went by, I realised it was out of my control and so, when things didn’t go the way I necessarily wanted them to go, I made myself deal with it calmly.
3. It made me realise how important it was to have a good support system. At school my friends made it more bearable and at university, when I had my down days, the new friends I’d made honestly did wonders to make me feel better about myself. Having those friends to help me get over that breakup made me realise that they’d help me handle any future heartbreaks to come.4. Time really does heal a broken heart. Years back, when I was in Year 8 and loved to read gossip magazines (God knows what I was thinking back then), I constantly saw this phrase whenever I read an article about a breakup. I didn’t believe it when I was going through it but as the years went by, it stopped bothering me as much as it used to. Then, one day I woke up and realised that time really had made it better.
I’m fully aware of how cheesy this article is and I’m pretty sure once Valentine’s Day is over I’ll be cringing at what I wrote. But I also think it’s all true and in some ways I’m glad I had my heart totally broken because I’m a much stronger person now that I would have been.