Things My First Love Taught Me

By Erin Deborah Waks

The perfection that is the combination of a rare steak and a good glass of red wine.

The beauty of a Sunday morning curled up with someone you love in bed, coupled with coffee and croissants.

How to love. How to make love. How to love in the way that feels right to me - and that I am incapable of doing it any other way.

How adorable cats are. How I see one curled in my lap in my future. 

How to be uninhibited in moments of intimacy.

That having read more than 200 books in a year is a turn on to the right kind of men.

How to make a dirty martini. 

And that Paris looks just as good when you’re in love.

But I also learnt that you can’t make someone love you the way you want to be loved. 

That if you feel like you’re too much for a person to handle, you probably are - for them. And you should let that person go before you’re convinced, even momentarily, that that says anything at all about you.

That I’m really quite easy to love. A man who makes me feel otherwise is just not my man.

That there is a monumental difference between a ‘boyfriend’ and a ‘partner’.

That some people can be good, just bad for you.

That it truly, truly is better to be alone than to be with someone who disrupts your peace. 

That if you feel something in your bones, and no words can convince you otherwise, you are probably right. Definitely right. That intuition will save you every time.

And that love is not a responsibility; it’s a choice.