Loving for the first time can be such a slippery slope. With our emotions running rampant, all we know to do is explore. We can't help it: friends, family, the happily married couple next door who run every Sunday evening and even the seemingly-perfect couple on the Instagram who post selfies at the gym have us yearning to feel what they are feeling. Sometimes, even with the most incompatible person we do exactly that. More often than not, they become a part of our mental and emotional health, transforming into the most blissfully terrifying emotion you'll ever experience. This is what love can be capable of.

First Love: Our first partner is who we give our "first everything" to. Our first boyfriend/girlfriend's emotions are the first we feel other than our own. We long to see the smile we fell for or see their laughter light up their face. The euphoria humans feel is something that is comparable to a drug, that washes over every crevice of our minds and body. It's virtually unexplainable. We long for something like this because we've seen it everywhere and therefore becomes something that is virtually unforgettable.

First memories: The person with whom we shared our first date/kiss/concert/etc. is undeniably etched in our minds for eternity. The way we can feel when the "love at first sight" feeling hits can be recalled decades into the future. Memories have a peculiar way of bringing feelings back one hundred fold. They can flood our minds with everything we used to feel then, how much we enjoyed life compared to now, etc. Memories, especially negative ones, are nearly impossible to forget, and that is what makes them so powerful.

First Lessons: Our first relationship sets the standard for many future relationships, whether it be positive or negative. Unfortunately, more often than not, it becomes a negative standard, which we can consistently compare to. We cannot help this, because being broken up with again because of something we could have avoided, or something we should have stood up for isn't an option. We will do almost anything in our power to avoid re-living another excruciating experience.

First breakup: Whether we are an adult or a freshman in high school, our first breakup will hurt... bad. There isn't a decent sequence of words to describe a broken heart for the first time because it's excruciating to recall the feelings and accurately represent them. Anyone's first breakup will undeniably change the way they view relationships because we won't know how to feel, what to do or say, and most importantly, we won't know how to move on from from feeling five excruciating emotions at once. Our first breakup will break our hearts in ways we weren't sure were possible. These things are not easily learned from, and not easily forgotten.

But it gets better, in time, it always gets better.

Although our first love may seem unforgettable, true love buries it alive. Our first love may seem like the most powerful things we feel in a long time, but uncensored, unadulterated love will always prevail at the end of the day. Our first love makes us truly laugh or smile at first glance, but our true love makes us grin like an idiot and burst out in laughter for all eternity. They wipe our tears away, not create them. We should never cease to forget that true love will perpetually save us, not cause us to drown and vice versa.

Find your lifeguard.