Puppy Love

My daughter has a boyfriend; No, not my teenage daughter, my seven-year old.

Gabriela has been Justin’s girlfriend way before my Victoria had a boyfriend. A source of tension between the girls; however, it was Gabriela’s relationship that we focused on and gave attention too, because, seriously what does a seven-year old know about relationships?

Often at the dinner table, we sit down and we ask after her boyfriend’s well-being? Has he been on the wall lately (punishment during recess for breaking the rules), does he eat all of his lunch? You know just regular questions you could ask about a seven-year old.

One day, though, Damian (my eight-year old son, a whole year wiser) asked her:

Why do you love this Justin? He was mocking her, to be sure…

But her answer floored her sister and me: Because he makes me laugh….

It was so simple, so true and so very honest. She said that of all the boys in her class, he was funny and he made her laugh.

A few days later, she was playing with her Barbie’s and one of them was arguing heavily with the other and in the end she screamed, I just love Justin, ok! Apparently the argument had been about Justin. Part of me wanted to leave her to her games, the other part wanted to talk to her about this Justin character, so I went into her room to talk about it, what the heck! I hadn’t played Barbie’s in a while.

As I sat there playing Barbie’s with her and trying to tame the unruly hair into a precise French twist, Victoria (17 year-old) walked in and grabbed the other Barbie and proceeded to join our game.

(In my head, I congratulated myself in being able to deliver the lecture to both girls! Yes, my young grasshoppers, mother will impart her wisdom about love)

So it went something like this:

Gabriela, it’s so sweet that you and Justin are dating!

Yea! He is such a funny boy, I really do love him

(BINGO!! Perfect opening…) Sooooo, you love him huh?

Yep, I sure do…

That’s so cute, but you don’t love him, love him right? (If you say it twice, it means something deeper)

Mom, if you love someone, you just love them right?

Well yes, of course dear, but what I mean, this is just a little boy in your classroom; it’s not real love…

(Victoria snorted; Gabriela looked at her sister and frowned) So what is real love mom?

(Victoria snickered; it’s never good when a teenager snickers)

You see, sweetie, real love is a feeling in the bottom of your belly that has a sense of good and warm and it’s fuzzy around the edges. It is a smile that appears on your face when you think of that special someone; it’s all of those feelings of warmth that spread in your heart for that special someone. It’s the desire to shower that person with good deeds, good thoughts, and good feelings.

Well, I feel that about Justin!

Yes, but its puppy love dearest, not love!

Victoria, not trying to be helpful and trying to get back at me for having the same argument with her earlier asked: What is the difference mom?

CRAP!

You see, Victoria, the difference is that puppy love is young and innocent and notoriously short lived.

(Big words, so Gabriela wouldn’t understand)

But you do admit that it is love, right?

(Thinking furiously about what I was getting myself into, or from which angle she was going to get me) Why yes, of course, it is love!

Then, if its love and its genuine, is it not your duty, our duty to respect it and give it room to grow and flourish?

(Losing my cool) OH COME ON!!! She is seven… She doesn’t know anything about love, I am just trying to teach her that you don’t go telling people that you love them, that you don’t go showing boys your feelings and leaving yourself vulnerable so that they hurt you, you don’t leave yourself open.

Does that mean that because she is seven, seventeen, or seventy the emotion is any different? Mom, you are not teaching her about love, you are teaching her about fear, about holding back, about ego.

(A distant part of me was so happy,she had been listening to all of that metaphysical stuff I had taught her over the years.)

And, I was rocked back! She is right, my idea of love is so twisted and distorted, how in the world are my kids healthy and normal? Well maybe not normal, but functional, you know?

Having grown up in a dysfunctional family, my views on life and love were a bit distorted. I had been aware of that all along. I constantly went in search for a new definition of who I was. I took quizzes and learned astrology, palm reading, studied body language and read tarot cards. I was only thirteen. My desire to define was obsessive.

I finally stopped running around in circles when a book told me that what I was, what I had become and what I would be depended only on me, entirely on me.

YCYOR: You create your own reality.

How? Through your thoughts, your ideas, your actions. They define you; they carve you out of the basic material of the universe. Your thoughts, as they swirl in your head, become embedded in your mind, and then in your soul.

Things that have happened in your life before and inevitably repeat themselves over and over are just an expression of your mind chasing its own tail. Have you ever wondered how those abused women stay with their abusers? Yea, thoughts can take themselves in a vicious cycle.

Where did those thoughts come from? Sometimes they come from what you have learned in your short life. They are from your direct experience. Hot stove, little hand, not a good feeling. Fall down, mom sweeps me in her arms: mom will comfort in times of pain. Fall down, mom scolds or berates me: mom is not a source of comfort. Even at a very young age, children can follow that logic.

Others were given to you, on a silver platter by your parents and the adults around you.

Men are not to be trusted. Women belong in the kitchen. Love is treacherous. Life is full of nasty surprises. Children are to be seen and not heard. Go to college or you will not be worth anything. If you don’t have money, you are nothing. The better the car, the neighborhood, the better you are.

You hear this in their conversations with other adults; sometimes they even sit you down and tell you all about this. Trying to teach you about life, they will impart their wisdom and make sure that you understand the lessons that they have encountered in life. You wont stumble over the same rocks they did, you will learn from their heartache and you will know, beforehand, what life is like.

Seems reasonable, doesn’t it? If I pass my experiences to my child, to the children around me, then they will avoid making the same mistakes. They will be enlightened and better off than what
I was, and surely, if I tell them all about the bad stuff I have encountered, well, they will be wiser, right?

How quickly we forget when we were young! Children won’t learn from your experiences. They won’t appreciate your life in another country, in the road, in the farm, in the other side of the universe. They are a result of their current environment and they cannot absorb what life was like for you. Nor is it realistic of you to expect them to, you are a result of your experiences and if you have made a conscious effort to provide your children with a different experience, how do you expect them to understand where you come from and what you lived throug? It doesn’t work. Handed experiences are not profitable, only the earned ones, the ones that leave scars, in mind, heart and soul.

Children are not a mold of clay, you cannot shape them to your liking, you cannot create in them the qualities that you think they will need to succeed or be as you think they should be. The things they will learn are modeled by your intentions and your actions; you overprotect your child, they will learn that there are things to be feared, because they need to be protected.

Same with love, if you have had negative experiences in love, you will pass those experiences to them. Kind of like saying that puppy love, teenage love is not real love.

And so I sat holding on to the Barbie following the origin of that askew view of love and wondering how much of my life had been shaped by this unconscious notion. And I realized that in my life, love had not been given, it had to be earned. It was something of value that had to be traded for, bartered for, and invested on,be worthy of.

Much, much, much later in life, after motherhood changed my life. I learned that giving it away was powerful. When I loved my children, loved them unconditionally, something in me stirred and moved. When I accepted my husband, my friends, my family, unconditionally, I was taken to another dimension of humanity. When a classroom of children come willingly and give me love and revel in the idea that I love them, each and everyone of them; it’s a high, drugs and alcohol could not compare. The idea of giving, the idea of loving someone enough to see them as exactly the way they are and accepting them exactly the way they are, well truly, that is love.

Because, it was all coming together in my head, when you love someone you see them in your mind as they are, EXACTLY as they are and you accept and you give your love, your energy and your acceptance, without asking for anything in return. You don’t see them as perfect, perfection is elusive and makes for feelings of inadequacy, you see them just as they are, all of that they are.

Can a child do that? Can a child love like that?

Yes, children can love like that. Children can love someone who in the eyes of society is imperfect and love them so much, anything else becomes superfluous.

I knew they could, as my dad struggled with alcoholism, I loved him. As my sister battled her depression, I loved her. As my brother hid under layers of past hurt, I saw his light and I loved him. As my husband pushed away, it kept pulling me in and I loved him.

You have done it too! That inexplicable moment, when something quickened in your heart and the most unlikely thing happened, someone who you never thought would be a part of your life becomes your beloved, your best friend. You see inside, they see inside, no one is judging, no one expects anything, no critique, only acceptance and naturally, love happens.

Ok, my mind was reeling from this; this is powerful stuff, from a seven year old? From a seventeen year old?

And the more I separated from that jaded part of me, the more I realized…love happens.
You don’t build it, create it, sculpt it, make it happen, potion it into existence or pray it into manifesting.

Love happens. Unexpectedly, unpredictably and sometimes, entirely without logic.

Yea, yea, I know, it takes work to make a marriage work, but that’s a marriage, a relationship. A relationship is not the same as love, and love is not needed to have a relationship, sadly.

So my girls were right! Love, in any scenario, in any expression of itself is still love.

And suddenly I found myself surrounded, in love, all expressions of love. Romantic love, physical love, filial love, sibling love, friend love, maternal love, long-distance love and yes even teenage and puppy love.