Question: I am sure there are multitudes of memories and experiences we are better off to drop as soon as they end. However, there are many we may live out our lives and never top — such as our first, sweet love. Is it not the best, the purest thing to carry in your heart and to cherish it once in awhile? These memories aren’t hurting us. They give us comfort, pleasure, and rest. Is that not better than to be present in the moment?

Answer: Our first love, the sweetest… because it is the most innocent and passionate at the same time… is unlike any other love we will know, much as we never forget the first time we realized fire is as beautiful to the eye as it is potentially painful to the finger.

This kind of “first love” experience awakens us to the possibility of disappearing into something greater than ourselves, but ultimately burns us because of our present nature that only knows how to cling to what it adores.

Nevertheless, this early initiation introduces us to a higher need within that can never be satisfied by any exterior relationship. And this is one reason why we are so attached to memories of love, whenever they occurred. Within the safety of “what was” we can momentarily satisfy the longing we have to feel whole (as only love can do for us). But we are betrayed by these same memories because, as you already know, they are a false spring… always followed by the winter of a heart that, in its emptiness, still seeks for a love everlasting… a higher love that doesn’t need to hold onto anything because it’s contentment is in continually emptying itself so that it may be filled anew.