MARY E THOMPSON

it's a curvy road to happily ever after

Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned from My First Love

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Do you remember your first love? The first person you looked at and wondered if you would see him every day for the rest of your life?

Falling in love for the first time is tough. Most of us fall in love more than once. We find someone that teaches us how to love, but that person isn’t always the person we love forever. That honor frequently belongs to another person. Someone we met later in life. But that first love teaches us so much.

The first boy I ever really loved was a friend. He was someone I had fun with. We went to the movies and talked and got to know each other as friends. I had feelings for him, but he wasn’t the kind of guy who dated a lot. When we were in college, he cut all ties to me and all our other friends. We lost touch. It hurt. A lot. But I learned from him.

Be Open to Love

I never told him how I felt. I was scared he would stop being my friend. He was a really nice guy, but we were close enough that he would be honest with me. When I found out he was attracted to me, I realized I missed out on a chance at something that could have changed my life. A part of me regrets it, but I love my life. I wouldn’t have all the things I have if things were different with me and this other guy.

Let Go

When things ended between me and this other guy, it hurt. Bad. Like I said, he cut ties, but all I knew was he stopped talking to me. I was pretty crushed by it. I held on to that pain for a long time. I used it to shield me from other potential dates. When he called me, three years later, a lot of that pain came rushing back in. He explained that he dove into his schoolwork, but it still hurt me. At that point in my life, I wasn’t in a position to welcome him back into my heart. I’d fallen in love with my husband, but talking to him again gave me the option to let go of all the pain I’d carried around for years.

Love Isn’t Always Right

Love is a funny thing. We spend so much of our lives wishing we had it, but when we find it, it doesn’t always last. People fall out of love, sometimes it’s one sided, and maybe it ends. That’s a hard thing to accept, but if love isn’t right, it won’t last. We don’t want to think about love not being right. Maybe it’s not the right time or the right person. Maybe it’s not you, it really is him. But when it is right, you don’t have to question all those things. My first love was someone I still think of fondly, but it we were really meant to be together, we wouldn’t have gone three years without speaking. He wouldn’t have called me when I’d found and fallen for my husband. I don’t regret the choice I made to stay with the man I married. With him, love was right. It was everything.

What lesson did you learn from your first love?

 

How do you say no to the one thing you’ve searched for your whole life? 

She knows what she wants. When he walks in, she’s sure he’s the answer. She just has to convince him of it. 

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Q&A Sunday: Lessons Learned

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My kids are off school tomorrow so I sort of forgot today was Sunday! Sorry about that!

Vicki has a new question for me today, one that tugs at my heart…

If there was 1 lesson that you want your children to learn, what lesson would it be?

There are a lot of lessons I want my kids to learn. I want them to be better than I am. Happier than I am. Healthier than I am.

One lesson is tough. But there is one thing that I think is important. Maybe the most important thing I can teach them.

img_6163Always be yourself.

It’s hard to say this is the biggest thing, but too often people aren’t true to who they are. People try to be someone else. We want to make others happy. We give in to peer pressure, we do things we don’t want to do, we have regrets.

But if we’re true to ourselves, those are fewer and further between.

We tell our kids all the time they can be anything they want to be as long as they aren’t doing something illegal. I want my kids to have jobs that they can excel at, but I want them happy. I want them to follow their hearts. I’ve been keeping a list since they were even younger of what they each want to be when they grow up. A few of the options they’ve come up with so far are…

Teacher
Firefighter
Marine biologist
Princess
Farmer
Rock star

And the list goes on.

If they decide that’s what’s right, I’m all for it! As long as they are true to themselves. They will find real happiness if they do things for the right reasons, for their reasons.

It’s not always easy, as a mom, to let them make choices I don’t agree with, but they’re making their own choices. And that makes a big difference to us!

Thanks so much, Vicki, for your question! If you have a question, send me an email (mary (at) maryethompson (dot) com) with Q&A in the subject, or post it in the comments below, and I’ll answer your question right here on the blog!

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