Love at 16

At 16… are you really ready for a relationship of such intensity? When I was 16, I believed whole-heartedly yes, it was possible – more than possible – in fact, I’d go as far as to say I thought it was “normal” to be passionately and irrationally in love at this age.

Then again, what is normal anyway? It’s something which at 16 I certainly wouldn’t have had an answer to - even if I’d have told you I did - and surprisingly enough, or perhaps not so… at 23, I still don’t have an answer to, so perhaps we’ll save that thought to ponder on a rainy day.

The thing is though, in so many TV shows, movies and sometimes even in real life you will hear adults tell these 16 year old youths that they couldn’t possibly understand what love is – let alone be in, or maintain a relationship with the level of maturity required to actually LOVE someone.

There are parts of this statement, which at only nearly 24… parts of me, sadly, already agree with. How could a person of the innocent and tender age of 16 possibly understand what is expected from a relationship and feel or know how to identify the presence of love?

Then I remember what I was like at 16 and realise perhaps I am getting old and becoming shallow. Could it not be as we gain the “maturity and wisdom” of age, we lose the purity and truth of youth with its unlimited hope led by heart not mind?

And I can’t help but think perhaps it is not love that we learn to find but that it is that kind of intense love we wind up forgetting - because maybe it’s just easier to. Heartache seems immature to dwell on in the adult world – so why risk it when sensibility is a possible and highly recommended option?

Love is around and always will be in so many different forms and that seems to be - as we grow older - what we take comfort in and what we pride ourselves on knowing we have; the love of our families, our children, our friends and even our pets. While we go to bed every night forgetting entirely the feeling of a first kiss or the potent sense of a first love.

As we get older, there are more responsibilities both in our own lives and in the lives of our partners and our perspectives change along with those responsibilities.

We grow up, buy houses, get married and eventually have children. The question is then no longer “Do you want to stay at my house on the weekend or shall I stay at yours?” or “Lets go to the movies and kiss in the love-seats” but “Will you take (insert first child’s name here) to ballet class on Saturday morning while I do the groceries?” “How will we pay for that? On credit or with cash?” “Shall we get a swimming pool installed?” “I’d really like to build a garage” and lets face it… regardless of the love that exists between these couples at these moments… it’s no longer the love we felt at 16 when the world was an uncomplicated place and our lives were completely carefree.

It has since become a different sense and meaning of the word LOVE.

We become practical, perhaps not because it is what we desire but because it is expected of us and along with our new found practicality and maturity comes what in our opinion is the right to tell our children that what they’re feeling at 16 couldn’t possibly be real love.

But are we in fact the ones who are completely wrong?

TBC…