Last summer my fourteen year old brother fell in love with a girl. He couldn’t get enough of her. They talked on the phone, they texted nonstop, they sent love songs to each other, they made out all the time. The thought of holding hands with, kissing, or talking to someone else didn’t seem fathomable, you see they knew they were meant for each other.
You are never going to guess what happened next.
They broke up.
My brother was literally heart broken, physically sick. He couldn’t focus, he couldn’t breath, without her nothing made sense. And then something else happened, school started, new girls came into the picture with their newly developed breasts and eventually he got over her.
Watching my brother go through this traumatic experience reminded me when I was about fourteen. When I was fourteen I met the love of my life, the man I was going to marry, my soul mate. He was the first guy I held hands with, the first guy I kissed, he was two point five years older than me and he was perfect. But as young love goes we broke up (well he broke up). When we he dumped me I thought I died. I was crushed. I couldn’t breath, I couldn’t think, I took “eating your feelings” to a whole new level. I was in love with him for a good three years, when I look back and try to figure out what it was about him I loved so much I can’t. He wasn’t smarter or funnier or better than all the other guys I dated. He was just him and to me he was perfect. I loved him because I loved him and there was no explanation needed.
Valentine’s Day just past and it was a really good one. I got more goodies than in all my years since I was old enough to put out combined and I spent it drugged up from my root canal, cuddling on the couch with my best friend. But because it was such a good Valentine’s Day it go me thinking about Love and how I have always held on to this idea that when I found Mr. Forever I would feel the same sense of conviction right away like I did was I was fourteen years old.
My mom taught me this game whenever I get effed up over a guy. Every morning after a break up I wake up and say out loud how bad it hurts on a scale from one to ten. If I played that game when I was fourteen I would have been above seven for a good year and hovering between three and five for another two years. I still play this game and the last few relationships that have ended I have been down to a one or a two with in a few weeks (days in some cases).
WTF?! Have I crossed over so far into adulthood that I can no longer feel that longing and need for a man?! Where’s all that pain that shows I was really connected and giving it my all to create a real passionate love? Now that I’m dating as a mother, do I really always have to see things through practical eyes, pushing the desire for butterflies aside and analyzing whether we make sense? Is there anyway to go back to having the only thing that matters be whether or not I got to sit next to him in the car so that I could maybe accidentally brush my arm against his? Was all that love and pain I felt for all those years really just hormones? And now that I am a mature adult women I will never feel that urgency in a relationship again? Have I become cynical in real life?
You know what I need…one night of throwing in the responsible towel for a few moments in Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream?
Anyone want to play?
xoxo,
Michal
