Immature Thoughts On Love

I was going through some of my old writings the other day, and I dredged up a few high school English class journal entries in which I had written about love -- in particular, "true love." The inner workings of a teenage mind were on full display in these pieces, one of which was actually directed at the object of my affection -- although now I can't even remember who she was. So much for that love being "true." Anyway, these are good for a laugh, I suppose. I did manage to squeeze a few moments of clarity in among oodles of teenage melodrama and angst. But mostly, it's just funny. If you are a teenager, if you have a teenager, or have ever been a teenager, you can probably relate. Enjoy...


1

Once you've found someone you know you should be with, then all the time you spent alone wishing to have someone to love, all the times you spent dreaming of things you thought would never happen to you – all these things seem pointless, mere remnants of a forgotten life. After you have someone, soon you forget how it felt not to have someone, to be alone, to have nobody. Regret is abandoned, hope is looked forward to. The future is no longer frightening, but steadily progressing.

It's hard to tell when you first fall in love. It starts deep inside with a feeling that makes you so happy that you question your sanity, brought on by a certain look in her eyes, the way it felt the first time you held her hand, the first time you put your arm around her, and held her close to you.

When this feeling surfaces, the most important things in the world seem dwarfed in comparison. You feel you are at the top of the world. Finally you have a partner, an affectionate counterpart who cares as much about you as you do for them. Someone who truly likes you, and wants to be around you, and share your feelings, your joy, your pain. There's nothing like it. It's the greatest feeling on earth. Suddenly, you realize you have fallen in love...


2

True love is not loving someone for what they wear, or how they wear it; what they say, or how they say it; what they do, or how they do it. True love is loving someone for who they are.

Your true love may a dream or a reality; the melody or the lyrics; the poem or the poet; the house or the home.

True love is not what life makes you, but what you make of life.

True love may be old or young; it may be rich or poor; weak or strong.

True love is whatever you want it to be, not what others want it to be.

True love is as much a part of life as life is a part of true love.


3

You have shown me more love than any other person ever has. I have taken it, often taking it for granted. I  have tried a million times to sort out every feeling that ever crossed my mind or entered my heart. But even if I had forever, everything would not be clear. One thing is clear, though: I love you.

It took me a long time, longer by far than it should have taken, to decide in my heart if I truly did love you. Did my love consist solely of my loving the idea of you as my girlfriend? Loving you because you are the first person to ever take my feelings seriously and to show me your feelings openly and honestly as well? Because you truly seemed to like me for me? For a while, these distorted concepts of love enthralled me, enveloped me, and deceived me. I was a slave to my own mind, fooling myself, denying myself of true happiness with you.

I guess at first I found the situation too difficult to believe. Me – loved and adored by another human being. Never! It was only when I realized "never" had come that I opened my eyes to the real truth. I opened my eyes to you. I saw beyond the exterior. I saw beneath flesh and bones, and took a glimpse at your soul, and envisioned our souls taking leave of our bodies and intertwining as one. That was when I realized I loved you.

Immediately, I knew I had to tell you. To tell you that what you felt was not unreflected. That there burns within me a fire that can only be quenched by you and the love you have inside you. But my heart kept silent; my lips uttered not a word. I suppose I was afraid that if I told you, by some strange chance, you might not feel the same, and I would be devastated to hear the empty words escape my lips, unreturned.

When the time finally felt right, I took a chance. When I first told you that I loved you, and knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that my words were true and that my feelings were truly my own, I had never felt so relieved. You repeated those three precious words and my heart melted. I felt the honesty in the touch of your hands. Later, I read the answer on your lips. It was then that I realized that I had finally found what I had been searching for all of my life – true love.

True love is not conditional; it is unchanging, no matter the circumstances, nor over the passage of time.