the lesson you only learn after your first heartbreak
Before you know love, you have to lose it..
Put your hand up if you remember your first heartbreak.
Palms sweaty, knees weak, arms heavy—as I typed the 11 digits (borrowed from a friend) into my phone. Her number. Shooting my shot, but let’s just say my gun was filled with blanks. I was 17, with zero experience talking to the opposite sex, but I had convinced myself this was worth the risk.
Goosebumps climbed up my arms as the phone rang, my heartbeat syncing with the dial tone. One voice prayed she wouldn’t answer; the other begged her to pick up. For a moment, I contemplated hanging —
“Hello?”
Her voice whispered, and my heart melted. She was talking to me. Just me.
It was our first real conversation since a friend introduced us.
“Hey,” I stuttered.
“Who is this?”
I forgot my name.
“Hello?”
“It’s Solomon. Yeah, it’s Solomon.”
She wasn’t impressed, excited, monotone but she was polite. Polite was enough.
No doubt, twenty years later, she doesn’t remember that conversation. But for me, it was pivotal. I was asking a girl out on a date, for the first time.
She said yes. A yes which felt more like a ‘maybe’, but it was all I needed to make my week.
Spoiler alert. The date never happened.
We kept talking, but the subject of the date never came up again. I stayed in the friend zone for a while, until the inevitable: she found someone else. Her new love interest? One of my closest friends.
That was my first heartbreak.
And the first heartbreak hurts the most, but it’s necessary.
In fact, I don’t think you truly understand love until you’ve had your heart broken.
A broken heart teaches you about pain, yes but also about healing. It takes you somewhere most people avoid. Surviving heartbreak teaches you the world doesn’t end just because love doesn’t go your way. And it reminds you: you still have more love to give.
Love can manipulate you into becoming another person. I had spent so much time trying to be what she would like, I forgot who I was. Like most teenage boys, alot of our persona was built around attracting the opposite. A mating ritual, just like peacock spreads its tail to attract a mate, I wore the overpriced trainers, the matching Nike Tech fleece, curated a whole swag designed to make me more. I even changed the way I spoke. I even changed the way I spoke.
I remember once, I tried to drop my voice into that low LL Cool J tone (only real ones, know that reference) tone on the phone.
She paused and said:
"Why are you talking like that?"
In hindsight, I could never be what she wanted. I don’t who she wanted, but I wanted to be him. But sometimes, we chase people hoping they’ll transform us into who we want to be. All the cool guys wanted her,
so being with her? That would make me cool, right?
The naive logic of a teenage boy.
After heartbreak, the only person you have left is you. And you have to like that person.
We all want to avoid heartbreak. Our instincts scream to run from it. But there’s so much to gain once you’ve made it through the tear-soaked pillows, sleepless nights, and bruised ego.
Heartbreak reveals your ability to endure, and rebuild.
It feels terrible, but it’s not permanent. When I see young couples holding hands, skipping through the park, I pray they last. But the truth is, there’s a ninety percent chance they won’t. They’ll grow, they’ll change, and eventually, they may move on. One of them will take it harder than the other.
But I wish I could tell them both: this is part of the process.
Most people go through it. In fact, you’ll probably face more unrequited love before you ever find something close to true love, whatever that even means.It’s like emotional Russian roulette. But the bullet doesn’t kill you, it grows you.
The scary part? None of us know what that growth will look like.
I don’t mean you should get your heart broken over and over — that’s brutal.
But the first heartbreak? That one hit’s different.
Because it doesn’t steal your hope. It teaches you how to love again.
What did you first heartbreak teach you?
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