I finally realized the true meaning of a first love. Love on its own is ineffable, but a first love? 

It is something perplexed, bittersweet and romantic. It is something unforgettable, and you know that your heart will gnaw after a wave of nostalgia hits you hard when you think of him or be reminded of him. 

That is the magic of a first love. You will never be able to let go of that special somebody and what you two had shared. 

There was this beautiful boy who managed to capture my heart in intangible ways. I never knew I would feel this way ever.

He taught me how to love in my own silent ways, how to look forward to each day to see him, how to genuinely feel like a girl, how to be happy so easily.

He taught me how to feel, how to smile brightly, how to cry, how it feels like to have a broken heart, how to grow into a more matured person and most importantly, he taught me the lessons of having a first love. 

Today is his birthday. And I am glad to say that I have somehow let go of the idea of being with him.

He is and will forever be my first love, and those are facts that cannot be altered. 

So, today is his 18^th birthday and I do not have any intentions to wish him (as of now) but I just want to highlight that after all the series of conflicted thoughts, mixed feelings and sad lonely moments, I am now a more matured girl who knows when and why to follow her heart. 

Follow your heart and you'll be happy.

I followed my heart last month and I took the initiative to text him for the first time in my life. I guess I can say that he took many of my firsts. 

(He was the first person to ever confess to me, the first boy to tell me that he loved me, the first boy to give me such intangible feelings and he was the first boy whom I liked and hated so much.) 

After texting him, I felt much better. No, I didn't talk about my feelings for him. I just went with a simple "How are you?" and it didn't take me long to realize that he didn't have my number.

Wtf, I know right. 

Anyways, I knew nothing about him after losing contact for so many years so I wanted to learn more about him. And I realized he was still the nice guy that I had liked. He might have changed, that I wouldn't know for sure. Because I've changed. 

And, he also did give me a slight hope that he might still like me. 

But. 

I finally realized. 

I do not want to be with him anymore. I don't want to be his girlfriend nor do I want to be his friend or acquaintance.  

It's okay to lose contact because he wasn't making much effort and there was nothing to talk about between us (except for my Iingering feelings which I would never confess to him). 

Instead, I want to remain as his first love. I want to be remembered as a special girl that had entered his life during his early 10s. I want to remembered as the chubby girl, that girl who wasn't the prettiest or nicest girl but strangely, the girl that he had liked, the girl that he had confessed to, the girl he had a crush on when he was much younger. 

Therefore, I just want to be remembered as his first love and I am contented with that. 

Again, I don't want to be with him or be his. But because he is my first love and someone I had loved so endearingly, someone I had felt so fervently for, I would always want him to be happy. As long as he's happy, I'll be happy. Because he's my first love and I will always have a soft spot for him; because he's beautiful and he once made me feel ethereal; and because first loves are beautiful till infinity. 

So, I finally realized that I had held on for too long, too long to not realize that we were over, and there was no going back and the fact that he had moved on and didn't have feelings for me. 

Thus, I would do the same. For myself and for us. 

Happy birthday, my first love.