First Love, Real Love?

My first love was named Robert. He was blonde and blue eyed and I was head over heels in love. We held hands in empty classrooms and danced to "Faithfully" by Journey. That was it. So was that really love?

According to Jonathan Small in his article at Women's Health, he'd say no. In fact, he'd say that everything that came before his "real" true love, his wife, was " lopsided, complicated, exhaustingly emotional tugs-of-war." Does that mean that in order to be real love has to fit some kind of definition?

I don't think so. I still think of Robert as my first love. What I felt - at 15 - was the realest thing I'd ever felt that I could call love. That wasn't attached to a parent or other relative anyway. It was real to me and I validate it by accepting it are my first love. Some people have said to me, "Well, all you did was hold hands! How could you possibly have been in love!" But really, what does that have to do with it? People fall in love without having sex, without kissing, without holding hands, and sometimes without even meeting in real life.

There is no concrete way to define love. There is no concrete way of expressing love. There is no concrete form of love. Over the years of your life you'll experience many different kinds of love - unrequited love, painful love, joyous love, comfortable love. These may all be with different people or they can even be within a single relationship. Love is not unchanging. Love changes frequently, from person to person, from year to year, from month to month, from week to week, and even from day to day.

But that doesn't change how you feel. Love is still love, whether you dress it in satin and bows or leather and a dog collar.