Monday, January 24, 2011

Looking Backward for Security

Thoughts on Young Love

I am but three months away from the commencement of my twenty-fifth year. The quarter-century mark is not only a milestone in the sense that we admit that we've lived over 25% of our lives, but also a milestone in new beginnings as a new season of life sweeps over and carries us forward. In short, people just change and no one is an exception.

Some of these changes are sad ones, like the realization that Santa won't be coming to see you, that your labor is not guaranteed or likely to be your own, and that unlimited slices of pizza are a thing of the past. Others are fun, like taking responsibility, freedom of travel, and intellectual maturity. Most of them, I've found, are just incidental and merely interesting to note. Puppy love is one of those things. Below I've listed ten thoughts on young love as it was (past-tense) in my experience. Perhaps you have some thoughts of your own.

1) A girlfriend's arch nemesis is a video game.

2) Your first true love is like a can of Altoids. Intense and so refreshing that you think nothing can stop it. Then, very suddenly you find yourself with an empty tin and a sheet of tissue paper that vividly describes the now-missing product. Eventually you put quarters and dimes in the tin to make it somehow useful and carry on as usual.

3) No matter how much you think you can make it work, you probably just can't make it work. Trying to fall in love with someone at 19 is like trying to fit a square peg into a triangle hole. The more you try the more beat-up both get. Wait for the triangle peg. Wherever the heck it is...

4) Remember that first kiss? That was nice. Unless, of course, it was just awkward. Often this is the case.

5) Getting to know new girls is fun (and for a while it is super fun). Eventually, getting to know one even more than any of the rest seems like a better idea.

6) Girls from north-eastern NC are trouble. Ok, maybe that's just my experience. (I'm mostly kidding).

7) Girls giggle a lot. This is incredibly attractive to 19 year old men. It is intolerable to most 21 year old men. I'm not sure what triggers the change.

8) Our sense of smell has the strongest power to conjure memory recall. If you don't want to remember a girl, avoid taking note of her perfume.

9) "I love you," in youth, is as easy to say as "I like mustard better than mayonnaise" or "Bunnies have fuzzy ears."

10) A song that has meaning to two young smittin' folks get's 1/4 of it's meaning from the lyrics and 3/4 from something that really, in hindsight, wasn't that profound.

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