To All the Girls I Loved Before

Written May 2020:
I wrote this when I was missing the ability to date and be with the opposite sex. I realized in quarantine how much dating added to my life and gave me a sense of companionship and social interaction. Pre-COVID life, I went on a date at least once a week, if not more. I missed it and was feeling rather alone. The only book series that I read out of all the books I read in 2020 was To All the Boys I Loved Before. This series, books, and movies helped me fill a void in my life as I missed love. I finished the third book the first week of May and reflected on it often in the month. So, amid my reflection time, I wrote this blog post to reflect on my past love life. It was a chance to yearn for the opportunity to date again and a way to give closure to past relationships.

To All the Girls I Loved Before

Peter and Laura Gene

Have you ever thought about what you would say to the people that you dated in your past? I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. This year, thanks to my roommates Dio and Noah, I discovered a series called To All the Boys I Loved Before. What started as two movies began reading and escaping the world to enter Laura Gene and Peter’s love. Anyone that knows me knows that I am a lover of love. I’m a sucker for a good romantic comedy. I usually don’t ever read romance books, but after loving the movies, I decided to read them. The concept of this movie starts with a girl writing love letters to the boys that she is in love with and them getting mailed out. She creates a fake romance with one of the boys to hide her feelings towards her sister’s boyfriend. Instead, she gets a second chance to fall in love with her middle school love. Upon reading the third book, I’ve been thinking about my past “loves” and what I would say to them if I got the second chance. There have been three significant loves, okay, four significant loves of my life, and I would honestly say thank you to them for they have turned me into the person I am today. I would also say I’m sorry to them, and I’m a hard person to love.

My first love was my high school love, and she’s the one I feel the worst for looking back. She got the worst of me, literally. I was a terrible, TERRIBLE boy to date in high school and even post-graduation. I was a boy who didn’t know how to open up, and I ran from everything. I literally couldn’t wait to escape my past and small town. We couldn’t have been more opposite of people, and we fought about the dumbest of things. TW will also have a cherished part of my life because she’s why I love the concept of love. She taught me how to route for love and to open my mind to romantic comedies. It all started with her. She introduced me to the Notebook, A Walk to Remember, and many more. I thought I loved her, but she taught me that I also didn’t understand or comprehend the meaning of love at all. I was a boy with dreams. I feel bad cause I treated her so wrong. I treated her in ways that no girl deserves to be treated because I didn’t know how to communicate, and I didn’t give her the benefit of the doubt. I was running and chasing dreams. I’m grateful because she taught me a lot about myself, what I wanted, and what I thought my dreams were. She is the reason that I understand what is most important in life. I am grateful and sorry for her. I’d don’t think I’ve ever taken the time to apologize to her cause she put up with too much from me. I look at her marriage in awe and admiration. I’m so happy about how life has planned out for her. She deserves it for what she had to put up with in the past.

My second love in life taught me a lot about what it means to listen and communicate effectively. Post mission, I meet someone that I instantly loved. I never thought I could fall in love so fast, but I did. For me, that will always be RP. I look back on that summer of love as my 500 Days of Summer relationship. I was in love and looking to plan forever, but she wasn’t, and she communicated that effectively to me. I didn’t listen to her, and I painted her as the villain post break up. However, I look back and see how much I was like Tom in 500 Days of Summer in that relationship. She brought me back to life in a time where I thought all was doom and gloom. She taught me how to live and see the good in life. However, she understood something I never did: I was indeed in love with my friend that wasn’t her. She knew it, and I denied it. I denied it hard. I loved RP but not the way I should have or thought I did. I was in love with the aspects that she brought to my life and the joys she brought. I didn’t fully love her. My heart was in love with someone else emotionally, and I feel bad for RP. She kept trying to break down the walls that I make. I feel grateful that the Lord brought her into my life and helped me see the world as a beautiful thing again. She opened my heart and inspired me to dream again. I look back on this relationship, and I realize how much of a villain I was and not her. She was smart to dump me and run as far away as possible.

Okay, so that friend I mentioned in the last paragraph, I loved her hard and didn’t want to admit it. I promised MM that I would be the one to help her fight through the world and never break her heart. However, I might have been the worst person for her. She was my best friend and the person I turned to when Josh wasn’t available. She made me laugh and encouraged me to go after so many goals. I look back, and I can see how I loved you more than she loved me, and that’s okay. That’s so okay! I would suppress my feelings out of fear and try to date other people till it was my good friend that she wanted. I knew I need to step away, and in doing so, I hurt her bad. However, we both know that we weren’t right for each other. We went on a date, and I didn’t know how to date at all. That’s how I knew I needed to move on and escape her world. The funny thing is the whole world could see that I loved her, and I couldn’t admit it. I just couldn’t let myself because I was scared of losing my friend. I’m so grateful for how she taught me how to have adult conversations and to help me look forward in life. I’m thankful that I got the chance to know what it’s like to be her best friend.

My last love is the one that has consumed my life for too long and the one that I can say that I truly loved. I have never seen myself getting married to anyone except one person. She’s the love that I moved to SLC to escape. Everyone wants to know why I moved to SLC; it was to get over AK. That’s right; I had to get over her. Living in Provo, I had constant reminders of old memories. I would drive down University Ave and think of her in the passenger seat of my car, and my mind would be flooded with memories of late night drives. This girl saw me through a lousy reputation, taught me how to have love just for me ,and how to live life. She made me want to be a better person. I strived daily to be the person that she saw me as. This is the first time I understood what true love was and couldn’t wait for an eternity. However, it came crashing down, and I saw the most rigid elements of life again. I even had the most challenging time riding my skateboard because I would instantly think of riding down the Provo canyon together. I don’t think I’ve ever been so devastated over love not working. I loved her from the moment I met her in my kitchen, and I knew life was going to be fun. However, I’m also grateful for the chance to get over her. In our relationship, I learned who I wanted to be in society. I knew what it means to be selfless in a relationship. I learned how to love, and that is something I’m beyond grateful for. I’ve never thought I was capable of being one that can love someone else. This is the relationship that I am most grateful for in life. I owe her the biggest thank you.

So, I’m beyond grateful that I got the chance to love in this life. I’m not sure when I will ever get to date again. Not sure what dating in the future will even look like or how that will happen. However, I’m grateful that I’ve gotten to see the highs and lows of love firsthand. I’m thankful for the girls that choose and allowed me to love them. I’m more grateful for the lessons that they have taught me in this life. I’m thankful that I’m a better person because of them. To the girl(s) of my future, I’m excited to see what you will teach me and how you will mold me to an even better person.

Trailer to the first movie. Highly recommend it