The Magnets

If your teenager is dating, read this.

I can remember my first real crush in middle school. Everything about him made my heart flutter, swoon with that awkward butterfly that flew around in my stomach. Most of my days were spent imagining the life we inevitably wouldn’t have together, and what colors would decorate our nonexistent wedding ceremony.

And, of course, I kept this close to my chest, telling no one. Not only because a crush can truly crush you if not reciprocated, but because I had learned from the many “wiser” around me that real love doesn’t exist in the young.

High schoolers don’t know what real love is, certainly, middle schoolers don’t even understand their crushes.

Right?

Well here’s the thing: love is like a silent symphony. You can’t pin it to a single note and call it whole, the players are the only ones who know the rhythm, and you can’t simply stop your heartstrings from being pulled.

Sure, your song might be full at 43, with a house and a family to fill it, but who’s to say the song of the young isn’t just as artful, just as beautiful? And that the emptiness isn’t just as loud when their music stops?

I’m sure you don’t believe me, and that’s okay. But I’d ask just one more thing from you before you write me off completely: read this poem I wrote (to my now husband) when I was a junior in high school.