"First Love"

Today's theme is "first love" or hatsukoi, befitting for the day after Valentine's Day. Does everybody recall their first love? Or are you still waiting for it? What is first love? The first person you have a puppy crush on, or the first person that your heart really is moved by? For some reason, first love always has more of a bittersweet tinge to it though it may begin with that innocent, warm, giddy feeling. I ask because today, I met my first love for the first time in 5 1/2 years. The last time I saw him was high school graduation. For some reason, I knew back then I would not see him again until I graduated from college. The thing about "one-sided love" is that you can't find closure. If you date someone and break up, that's sort of a closure. But with unrequitted love, there is no way to end... It just lingers then only fades with time.

I guess the character "Li Meilin" of Card Captor Sakura grew to portray this unrequitted love in a moving manner quite uncommon in an elementary school student, and also makes the anime all the more profound. In a sense, Meilin's healing process in "New Trials" sort of conveys my own healing process as well. Meilin fell in love with young Syaoran at age 5 and dreamed to become his bride someday. Some may wonder what can someone so young know about love. But I feel like when you are young and naive, your love can be purest. In this society, most people grow more jaded with love the older you get. Love becomes less of its true essence and more of analyzing materialistic factors like wealth, looks, school and job. Syaoran's first and only love is Sakura (his crush for Yukito doesn't really count). In contrast, for someone like Touya, his first love was Kaho, but his "OTL," one true love, is Yukito. I guess with Sakura, I always debate how genuine her love for Yukito was. Though it's hard to compare, I always feel like Meilin giving up on Syaoran hurt more than Sakura giving up Yukito (though I may be biased because I was routing for Syaoran and Sakura in the first place.)

In real life, I know people who have dated someone for a couple years, but afterwards are unsure that they truly "loved" their partner. On the other hand, their are those whose love never were expressed, never acted upon--yet is that still love? I say yes. My best friend is 24 and she started dating an exchange student from Japan and is now doing long distance. I think she's had numerous crushes before, but I really believe this boy is her real first love. Well, I guess my conclusion is that "first love" can take many shapes and forms and can come to people at different periods in life. After all, everybody has their own pace.

Anyhow, my "first love" started when I was twelve and took almost ten years to completely fade. Of course, it's not like I only liked him, and there was other stuff in between. But today, after seeing him, I realized why my heart has been frozen in time. It seems like his presence overshadows every other guy's. Secondly, I have been over him for a long time, but it was good to finally see him and confirm this. In a sense, I have lost that innocence of a 12-year-old falling love for the first time, that doki doki feeling. Thirdly, I always thought that "this person has potential in him to be really great," and I am so glad that he lived up to my expectation.

Today's song is the quintissential J-pop song by Utada Hikaru, one of my favorite female artists. "First Love" is from her first album and perhaps one of the most popular J-pop songs out there.