Over the last few years, I've come to realise how important it is to experience different people, in order to find out who you are and what it is you want.
First relationships, in my opinion, have a lot of say in how the rest of a person's love life unfolds. It is in this relationship that you discover the kind of person you are; how much you can tolerate, what you want, what you expect, how hard you are willing to work to keep things going. You learn about the things that irritate you, what makes you insecure, what hurts and what you can handle.
The first relationship both builds your confidence and destroys you; on the one hand, you learn so much, you know what to expect, you don't want to repeat mistakes... but on the other, some of the things that hurt remain sore, and stay difficult to let go of.
It's easy to fool yourself when you are by yourself, when your decisions don't affect anyone. It's when you are with someone that the image is difficult to uphold. That's when you are faced with taking someone else into consideration, and suddenly you wonder, how selfish are you really? How much are you willing to sacrifice? How ready are you to put yourself in the backseat, and allow this entity, this addition of you and someone else, which is much bigger than each of you alone, to become priority?
And since no two relationships are the same, you keep on discovering things about yourself... some good, some bad. Some are things you never thought were true, hence the “fooling” of yourself.
These are things that prepare you for commitment- before taking someone else seriously, you have to assume that you will be with this person for the rest of your life, and you have to ask yourself – are you ready for that? If not, then there is no point to even begin; things will only end sour.
But if so, it means that you have an understanding of who you are and what you want. Maybe it's not complete, maybe it is never complete, but it's enough to make you believe that you are satisfied with your past, it has taken you to your present, and that will be the foundation for your future. That is why paying tribute to the past is important; remembering what it is that brought you to this point, to keep fortifying the foundation and making it as strong as possible.
