One of the things I most want for my boys is to fall in love. As teenagers. I want them to have that first love – one where mortgages and grown up things don’t prevail. One where funding comes from part time jobs and your parents. One where it’s a dividing time between your friends and your love. This has all come about tonight because I was watching the very first twilight tonight, with Lovely Bloke. Badgering him about his experience of love as a teenager. He didn’t have much to report to me. Whereas I of course, have a whole flood of emotions come to mind, watching Edward and Bella, working out what to do with their connection. How to manage it, how to have a conversation around it.
I remember vividly that I sat on a ferris wheel with Nick, before we got together. I was not quite 16 and he was already 16, so he was in the year above me at school. He went to Bolton Boys School and Me, to Lowton High School. We lived about 25 minutes from each other and were still reliant on lifts from parents. I remember so much, from our 4 years together. It ended when I went to University. Even though I was at the same University as him – you bet I followed him there! We’d even gotten engaged when I was 18. But that relationship wasn’t just about love and doing the deed. It was friendship, fun, hanging out, helping each other through GCSE’s, A Levels, University applications. There was a healthy enough part of us that wasn’t about snogging and the other stuff, promise.
There was a connection, a bond, a whatever, so strong, so deep, that I totally fell apart, for months and months once it finally ended. And even though it was the most awful experience of my life to date, it also gave me the ability to know that I would survive anything. That self resilience has come in useful so much since, so I don’t even resent the sadness and heartbreak and loss of purpose that I had afterwards.
And it’s this that I want for my boys. To be loved, worshipped, to be someone that someone else can’t bear to be separated from. To be the first thing on someone’s mind as they wake each day and go to sleep each night. To be consumed by first love. So that when they’re middle aged like I am now, and a parent and love feels different, because it’s got so many other things competing with it, they’ll be able to look back on that first love and smile, like I am tonight, before I go and tuck my boys in and snuggle up to Lovely Bloke who will no doubt nick all the duvet as he usually does….
So, here it is, the moment that Edward and Bella have their first conversation. Do you have a moment in your life like this? Comment, and tell me about it….
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