Pushing Thirtyy

Lovefool

I was 13 when Romeo and Juliet starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes came out. Thirteen, of course, is a very impressionable age, where hormones are raging and teens are looking to begin understanding life and love.  What a perfect time for a movie like this to come out and define true love for young hopeless romantics everywhere.

From the first time I saw that movie, I was on a mission to find a love that went beyond all bounds, and I was not alone.  Girls were into it and so were boys.  I remember being on the phone with one of my love interests singing Love Fool and “I love you always, forever” (also popular at the time).  For the next few years I would fall for a few guys really hard and also try on different kinds of guys, desperately trying to find a fit.  I was often single.

It’s hard for me to say who my first love was because of this phenomenon.  Was it that boy from summer camp?  Was it a guy I dated in high school? My college boyfriend? When I think about the few guys I dated when I was young that I said “I love you” to, the circumstances were very different and the feelings were always very different.  So here comes the time-honored question: what is love? When does it go from puppy love to real love?

One piece of this I do have figured out.  It is hard to fall in love until you grow into the person you are meant to be.  During high school and even college you spend so much time forming your opinions about life. For me, rather than have someone else shape those opinions by being in a relationship, I took the time to shape them as an individual.  That said, I am the first to admit that every person I developed a relationship with had an impact on me developing into myself. I think this was a big step in allowing myself to finally realize a love that had been in front of me for a few years.

When I compare my relationship with my current boyfriend to past boyfriends, it’s hard to imagine I was ever in love before.  No one has seen me the way he has seen me. He’s seen me in the most trying situations I have yet to experience and I have seen him in some pretty tough situations as well. I know it’s not the first time I’ve ever been in love, but it feels so much truer that it ever did before.

I think that true love takes the passionate aspects of puppy love and applies them to a real world situation.   My boyfriend can all at once make my heart flutter one minute and make me insanely mad the next.

So what makes real love last?  We never give up on each other.  We are partners, lovers and best friends.  You can’t be selfish in love.  If you can reignite the flame that made the fire start in the first place, then you can make it through anything together.

Here’s a poem I just found that I had written when my boyfriend and I first started going out.

Yesterday’s Skin

I shut the TV off
I had found music again
I was dancing again
Toes gliding across the tiles
I shed yesterday’s skin

I turned the lights on
I had been crawling in the dark
I let the music heal me
Tears released me
From yesterday’s skin

I sang my heart out
I could feel again
It’s been so long
I came back to me
and left yesterday’s skin behind

I lost my breath
I let go of all I had grown to know
I found love
and left yesterday’s skin behind