The Feeling of First Love

Why does first love stay with us, even years after the person is gone? Maybe what we remember isn’t only who we loved, but who we were when we loved them — more hopeful, more open, and not yet so practiced at protecting ourselves. In this episode of The Same Emotional Structure, Susan Q. explores the relationship between the Emotional Operating System and the Erotic Operating System, and how our need for safety can sometimes pull against our longing for aliveness. Through first love, vulnerability, desire, and Identity Completion, we explore a quieter possibility: perhaps the people we can’t forget are sometimes connected to parts of ourselves we’re still trying to find. Maybe we aren’t only searching for love again. Maybe we’re searching for the self who once believed so completely in its possibility.