First Loves & Lasting Lessons: How They Shape Us

💜 Do you remember your first love?

Was it sweet, silly, heartbreaking, or unforgettable? First loves leave more than memories — they shape how we see ourselves and how we love in the future.

In this week’s episode of Travel Time Stories with Shannon, I share my own story of first love, what it taught me, and how those early experiences still echo in our lives today.

 ✉️ Got a first love story of your own? Drop it in the comments or email me at lamkintravel@gmail.com I might just share it in a future episode!

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Transcript

First Loves and Lasting Lessons: How They Shape Us

Welcome to Travel Time Stories with Shannon. I'm Shannon, your host from Texas, and I wanna thank you for being here with me today. If you're new here, this is the podcast where I share real stories, the good, the messy, and everything in between. Some weeks I'll bring you along on my travel adventures, the shenanigans and the lessons I've learned along the way.

Other weeks, I'll dive into my personal life story, adoption, trauma, healing, and transformation, along with everything in the middle. Because for me, travel and life are deeply connected. Both shape us, both change us, and both leave us with memories that last a lifetime. Today's episode is one that touches all of us.

No matter where you've been or where you're going first loves, I bet you remember yours. Maybe that memory makes you smile. Maybe it makes you cringe or maybe even after all these years, it still stirs up a little ache inside First. Loves don't just stay in the past. They leave fingerprints on your hearts shaping, who we are, and how we see love in the future.

  📍 So grab your favorite beverage, settle in, and let's talk about first loves and the lasting lessons they leave behind.  When I think back to my first love, I'm instantly transported to that season of life, the age where everything felt so big, so dramatic, and so final. Where one smile from the right person could make your entire week, and one argument could feel like the end of the world.

I was a teenager, 16 to be exact, living in a small country town. When I met my first love, it was during a time of turmoil in my life. Having just learned the news, I was adopted. Angry at the world and suffering with low self-esteem issues. For me, my first love wasn't just about the boy, it was about the timing.

I was still trying to figure out who I was already carrying the weight of childhood struggles, and here comes this new emotion, this new connection that made me feel seen. Carl, even now saying his name stirs something in me. He looked like he'd stepped straight out of a movie tall with dark hair that was a little long in the back, a body cut like it had been carved, and always in his black leather biker jacket.

He was three years older than me with that bad boy image that drew everyone's attention. But here's the thing. Underneath it all, he wasn't what he looked like. He was kind. He was steady, and for a while he was, my whole world, the way we met felt like fate. My best friend at the time, Tonya was dating Johnny, who just happened to be Carl's best friend.

I had introduced Tonya to Johnny through another boy I had briefly gone out with, and even after that ended for me. Their relationship only grew stronger. They were inseparable. And Johnny became a big brother to me one night. He introduced me to Carl. The sparks were immediate. Love at first sight for me, and when Carl told me he liked me too, I couldn't believe it.

Someone like him, this man who looked like every girl's dream, wanted me. From then on the four of us, me, Carl, Tonya, and Johnny spent as much time together as we could. My parents adored him. He lived farther away, but he'd make the drive to see me, or I'd tag along with Tonya to see Johnny Tonya's. Parents were easygoing and they even allowed co-ed sleepovers so many nights.

We all stayed under the same roof. Those nights were everything youthful. Laughter, whispered secrets, and the giddy thrill of first love. I remember the excitement of hanging out the phone calls that stretched late into the night, the way the smallest things felt like magic. Maybe you remember that too, that flutter in your stomach when you see their name pop up, or when you spot them across a crowded room.

It was with Carl that I experienced true intimacy for the first time. Before him, I'd gone through what I call my hoe phase, careless hookups, nothing meaningful, just chasing attention. But Carl was different. He taught me what it meant to make love, to feel, wanted to feel cherished, to feel truly connected.

Those were the moments that made me feel like I mattered. For a girl who often felt invisible, that feeling was powerful. But like most first loves mine didn't last forever. At that age, very few do. Maybe it ends because of distance, because of growing up or because we just don't know who we are yet.

And if we don't know ourselves, how can we really know who we belong with? One day out of the blue, Carl broke up with me. No explanation, no closure, just gone. I can still feel the crushing weight of that loss the way my chest ached, the way I replayed every memory trying to figure out what I'd done wrong.

He had been my everything and suddenly I was nothing to him. You think you'll never get over it? Never find that feeling again. To make matters worse, Tonya and Johnny stayed together, which meant Carl was still around seeing him, especially when he started seeing other girls, was unbearable. And it wasn't just losing Carl.

It was like I lost Tonya too, because I couldn't bear to be around them anymore, losing my first love and my best friend at the same time. It was like two deaths at once.

My other friends tried to help. They'd take me out, introduce me to new guys, but no matter what, I compared them all to Carl. None of them measured up. None of them could. And yet, looking back now, I realize my first love wasn't just about the boy or the relationship. It was about what it taught me. It showed me how vulnerable love makes us.

It revealed the parts of me that were desperate to be chosen, to be loved, to be valued, and it also showed me how fragile young love can be, how easily it can slip away in many ways. That first heartbreak planted seeds of lessons I didn't fully understand until much later. Lessons and boundaries about not losing myself in another person, about not letting someone else's love or lack of it define my worth.

Here's the thing about First loves. They remind me a lot of travel. Think about the first time you visited a new place. It was exciting, unfamiliar, maybe even a little scary. You didn't know what to expect. You were wide-eyed and soaking it all in, and no matter what happened, whether the trip was perfect or full of mishaps, that first journey changed you.

It left you with a story. An experience and a memory that stayed with you forever. That's what a first love does. It's a postcard from the past, something sweet, sometimes bittersweet, but always a part of your story. Just like travel first, love shapes the way you approach what comes next? It sets a foundation for better or for worse.

Maybe it teaches you to open your heart. Maybe it warns you to guard it more carefully, but either way, it leaves you changed. Here's what I've learned first, love doesn't define your forever, but it does shape your journey. Looking back now, I realize that Carl was more than just my first boyfriend. He was my first real love.

He opened me up to what love could feel like, but he also showed me the pain of heartbreak and how deeply it can cut first. Loves don't always last, but they always leave a mark. They  become part of the fabric of who we are, the way we give, the way we guard, the way we grow. And while losing Carl hurt deeply, it also taught me something important.

Love is beautiful, but it's not always forever. And sometimes losing what you think you can't live without is the very thing that teaches you that you can. For me, it taught me both what love could feel like. And what it couldn't sustain. It made me aware of the patterns I carried into later relationships.

It showed me where I needed healing, and it also reminded me that while love is powerful, the most important relationship we ever have is the one with ourselves. If your first love memory still carries pain, I want you to hear this. You don't have to erase it. To heal, you can honor the version of yourself who lived it, who felt it, and who learned from it.

You can acknowledge the heartbreak and the lesson, and you can let it be one chapter of your story without letting it define the whole book.

So what about you? Do you remember your first love? Was it sweet, silly, heartbreaking, or unforgettable? I would love to hear your story. Leave me a comment. Send me an email at lamkintravel@gmail.com or even share it on social media and tag me. Who knows? I might share it in a future episode of Ask Shannon, because here's the truth.

First loves may fade, but the lessons stay with us forever First, loves are rarely our last loves, but they are often our first teachers.

 📍 Thanks for joining me today on Travel Times Stories with Shannon. Don't forget to subscribe. Leave a review and share this podcast with someone who might need a reminder that they aren't alone in their journey of love, loss, and healing. Until next time, keep making memories for life.