Young Love

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“The minute I heard my first love story, I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.” – Rumi

The other day Miss O came home from playing at a neighbor’s house with a mystified expression. She told me that the 9-year-old brother had been kidding his 7-year-old brother about “playing with his girlfriend.” It appears that the younger brother had confided in his brother about a crush on Miss O and now the older brother was teasing him mercilessly.

Now I understand why that delightful boy is always smiling ear to ear every time I see him. I had just assumed he was extraordinarily happy and polite.

There are so many places to go with this story it feels target rich – the complete and utter delight of having a crush, the irrepressible urge to tell others when someone sparks your heart and the vulnerability of sharing your secret.

Just witnessing the potential energy of this little scene reminded me how powerful young love is – and I don’t mean just love among the young but the first stirrings of the heart. There are so many more questions than there are answers, the anticipation is excruciating and life is so wonderfully alive! It’s the heart begging to be let off the leash and dance, the mind trying to fill in the blanks all the while you are pretending to have it under control even as you know nothing is actually normal or controllable.

So you have to tell somebody – and this leads to the next potential topic from our story. It makes me think of the time in junior high that a friend told me she’d been making out with my best friend’s boyfriend on the side and swore me to secrecy. After I sweated it out for a couple of days, loyalty won out over secrecy and I told my best friend. And it also reminds me of my friend in my adult years that would relish in telling all the dirt she knew about other people’s indiscretions. She always had a story and it made hiking up a trail a little more interesting.

Then when my husband’s infidelities came out, I found out it was my messy life that was her fodder. I was chagrined that I had listened to those other stories. And I also learned that the vulnerability of falling in love might actually pale in comparison to the vulnerability of falling out of it.

So then we get to the third act – the brotherly teasing. In his book, The Thin Book of Trust Charles Feltman defines trust as “choosing to risk making something you value vulnerable to another person’s actions.” It seems like siblings and these juicy secrets full of so much potential energy are often the proving ground for trust. And we don’t always get it right.

Our neighbors were leaving for an extended trip on the day after older brother revealed younger brother’s crush. Hopefully that gives the boys time to work it out. Meanwhile, Miss O doesn’t seem too changed by the news which makes me glad that the power of love is still pretty tame at age almost 7.

43 thoughts on “Young Love”

  1. Hi Wynne.
    Thank you for sharing another wonderfully rich post. I love how you find angles from which to write and then flush them out with supportive information from books you’ve read. One particular line literally leapt of the page at me: “It’s the heart begging to be let off the leash and dance…”
    Keep it up! A pleasure to read!

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  2. My devilishly handsome, charming, infinitely sweet grandson of almost 7 also has a girlfriend. My son-in-law took the two for a meeting in the park. As they got out of the car, the boy whispered to his dad not to get too close. So, it begins …

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  3. Ah, young love! So sweet! My 15-year-old grand-twins seem to be at different ends of the spectrum. Miss L recently had her first kiss, while Mr. D has declared the girls his age to be “basic”. He is a nerd and comes from a nerdy family, so we tend to have deep discussions about different things. I guess he hasn’t met a girl who shares the same interests! That may happen in College when he gets to meet more people from different areas of interest, LOL!

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    1. How interesting, Tamara! It feels so fun to just watch, doesn’t it? Even just hearing your story fills me with all that potential energy. Here’s to great luck in love for both of them! ❤ ❤ ❤

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      1. I love watching them change and grow. They blossoming personalities are intriguing me. I can see the grown people

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  4. Your wonderful story reminds me of when my 5-year old granddaughter and the 5-year old grandson of dear friends fell in love. It was adorable watching the two go through the various relationship challenges that beset adults—little spats, standoffs, contrition, make-ups, and the anticipation of seeing one another between visits. We hoped that they would get married and make in-laws of us, but alas, such was not the case. It fizzled out after a few years, but it certainly was fun while it lasted!

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    1. Oh, that is so sweet, Julia! This wouldn’t happen to be the same granddaughter that’s on the Appalachian Trail, is it? I think this is so adorable to watch and feel all the fun of it!! Thanks for sharing this wonderful story!

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  6. Oh, this brings me back to grade school when people swear to keep a promise then the loose lips sunk the ships.

    I can definitely relate to those walks with a gossipy friend who can’t keep the dirt to themselves. It certainly made for interesting times but I agree that it’s not fun when the tables are turned on you.

    That’s why I find as I get older, it’s harder to be truly vulnerable with people cuz you never know how your words will be twisted. But there’s also a freedom in not caring what others think. A lesson these little brothers will surely learn in life one day!

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    1. Beautifully said, Ab! Being truly vulnerable matters – but so does the freedom not to care what others think.

      All the lessons these kids will learn – the list is so long, I just hope I can keep my mouth shut so they can find the lessons themselves all the while having a safe harbor.

      Loose lips sink ships — I’m laughing! Exactly!

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  7. I would never ask you to rehash what is obviously a painful past, but I’m curious whether you’ve ever written in more detail about your husband’s infidelities?

    Also, “It’s the heart begging to be let off the leash and dance” is pure poetry!

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    1. Thanks for that compliment, Mark! Coming from you, a true master of words, I’ll take it!

      My divorce was messy at the time but it isn’t a painful subject for me now. Now, I’m so grateful that it bounced me out of that yucky part of life. I think you and I have commiserated a bit about the relief of getting out of bad marriages. But yes, I have written about it – this one about why I chose not to have kids with my ex-husband: https://wynneleon.wordpress.com/2021/11/24/the-conditions-for-change/ and this one that talks about why it was so hard to have a real conversation about it https://wynneleon.wordpress.com/2021/05/28/projections/ come to mind.

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      2. The chronology of blogging is interesting, isn’t it? You start writing and then because people come and go, there’s no start, middle of the end. Thank you for asking – it isn’t a sensitive topic at all! It’s been a pleasure to get to know you through your blog posts and I know from things like your 10 year anniversary and the old links you included some of your history with Tara but there’s a lot of context I’m missing too.

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  9. I was such a downer with my kids. I would say things differently when asked if I had a do-over. I told them..”Just remember, puppy love leads to a dogs life”. Except my youngest said back “sounds good to me”

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    1. I’m laughing at your youngest’s retort…that’s a good one, Gary. It’s so tempting to want to keep our kids from hurt. I just hope I can navigate this topic with some perspective. Thanks for giving me some, Gary!

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      1. Now that my kids are 40ish, they tell me stories of how they repeated the same line, rolling their eyes and saying “I can’t believe I sounded like my dad”. I tell them “it’s ok. actually you sound like great grandpa. This goes back generations”

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  10. “The heart begging to be let off the leash, and dance.” Wow! You Wynne are a wordsmith expressing the emotions here so eloquently. Vulnerability is difficult at any age, though I do believe falling in requires more vulnerability than falling out. Thankfully Miss O doesn’t need to find out yet. Beautiful post. As always!

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    1. Yes, thankfully Miss O doesn’t need to find out yet. You’re right – I think falling in love requires more vulnerability. But falling out leaves you in a vulnerable state. Maybe there’s a better word for it. I’m going to have to think about that. Thanks for the comment, Alegria!

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    1. Nascent love — oh, I love that, Natalie! Yes, it’s all so messy and wonderful at the same time. Thank you for commenting and adding this phrase to my way of thinking about it!

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  13. What a bummer about that boy teasing his brother. Not surprising, but poor younger brother. Glad Miss O is unaffected. Super stinky about your gossipy friend. I never trust a gossipy woman. Who knows what she’s saying about you, in the general sense. With this woman, you had the misfortune of finding out. :/

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      2. Good question. Maybe no response? Just a complete change of subject? Would that work? For me, I had kids and that changed the friendship entirely so that it became moot. Which is a little of an extreme way to get out of it… 🙂

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