Ah, puppy love. Cute as a little puppy, isn’t it? Except, of course, when you step into that inevitable puddle -- the one you don’t see until it’s too late. So I grabbed a roll of emotional paper towels and sat down next to him.
Renee Antonelli Valente
“I just don’t get it, Ma… Girls…. No offense.”
“None taken, kiddo. Just tell me who the little witch is who messed with your heart.”
OK, that was my inner voice talking.
What I really said was: “No problem, baby. Tell me what happened and I’ll try to help you make sense of it.”
He then proceeded to show me he felt deflected, infected, rejected. His “girl” was walking with the boy down the block.
Ouch. Violin strings swelled in the distance.
Poor little guy. Having to understand the nuances of the male/female polarity is complicated for adults, let alone 10 and 12 year olds. But these moments are going to shape his views about relationships for the rest of his life.
Who ever forgets their first love? Actually, it’s more like attraction. Love -- real, genuine, absolute love -- is so very different.
I remember my first: It 4th grade and I broke his heart when I ditched him for the new boy in class. I’ll never forget him, or the giddy feeling adolescent relationships gave me. Real love, on the other hand, you can’t experience until your mature enough to realize that your soul hurts without it.
Some love you can explain, rationalize, quantify. Real love defies logic. It transcends definition. Makes puppy love look like something shiny.
So I was left to explain the unexplainable.
I started by letting him know that there is never a formula. or a right or even wrong way to be, when it comes to love or feelings (cough…Proposition 8…cough). You can’t help who you fall for. There will be times you will be lucky enough to find them falling for you back. Then again, sometimes they’ll walk down the block with someone else -- right in front of you.
But that’s the risk. To quote a friend, “Love would hold no charms if it wasn’t for the pain.” And you know as well as I that there‘s nothing like the pain that comes hand-in-hand with love.
Curiously, it is the antidote to its own poison.
I want to protect him from that. As his mom, it’s only natural. But I know that it’s an unfortunate inevitability, a necessary part of growing and learning. Without the pain of losing something, you’ll never understand its importance.
I know he’ll be wounded with each failed crush. And I’ll be there to nurse each and every bruise on his heart. Instead of BandAids, I’ll apply words of wisdom gleaned from scars I bear from my battles with the yin and yang of love.
In that, I hope he will see that there is resiliency and hope. After all, the next time could already be coming around that corner.
As an adult, with many more years of experience, I know that this fleeting moment in the history of his heart will pass quickly. But as I sat with my beautiful young boy, I thought of the many moments that lie ahead, none of which either us will be totally prepared to handle.
We’ll try, together, and we’ll paper-train that puppy best we can. When there are puddles, I’ll sop them up.
All I need to do -- as I watch my boy’s crush of the moment walk down the street with another boy headed toward his own fall -- is resist the urge to chase down that little wench with a rolled-up newspaper….
She moved to Wayne, but this Union (City) Hiller never left her city roots. Renee Antonelli Valente is a true 'tweener', book-ended by a feisty mom in her 70s and her own inquisitive grade-schoolers. Still, she finds time to rock out.
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