Young Love

I miss the conviction of young love, the unshakable knowledge that your love is true, the lightness of a relationship, that lacks the baggage that is the equivalent of an overseas trip! But I mainly miss the certainty that the person that you are with is "the one," and that because you love each other, nothing else matters.

We laugh, those of us who remember feeling this way. We shake our heads because we remember those exact words coming out of our mouths, as the elders in our life cautioned us to take things slowly.

I like to think that I'm the cool mom, but because it is written in the parent handbook that we must give "the speech," I do what I must! "Take it slow," yada yada, "You are too young," yada yada, then I throw in a couple "you don't really know what love is," and suddenly the position of least understanding parent in the world, previously held by my parents, is now firmly a part of MY parental resume!

Back think, things were simple, when love was simply enough. But now we roll our eyes and tell the youngsters that they should take it slow, that they are too young, and of course, they listen to us as well as we listened to our elders. And this is exactly the way it should be. Love is a lesson that can't be learned second hand. The pain and loss of our first love can't be avoided through wise advice, and in fact, shouldn't be avoided at all!

So tonight, I'm grateful for the blind love and the devastating loss of my first love, and all of the loves and losses that came after. Because I know that I had to go through all of THAT to get to this. And THIS, for all of its difficulties, is pretty darn awesome!!