Random Ramblings
Are teenagers 'incapable' of love?

Apparently, some say that teenagers are incapable of love. Supposedly, our raging hormones tell us of love, when it is actually a matter of physical lust.

I am young. I am often immature. My raging hormones have nothing whatsoever to do with ability to love deeply; to be willing to sacrifice myself for another in complete unselfishness. Would it be cliché to say that I am currently experiencing such an altruistic love? Probably. Oh well, too late.

It is a strange love, one that I don’t yet fully understand myself--one from which any kind of sexual urge is completely irrelevant. Boyfriend, no, I have yet to experience the classic sweetheart syndrome. Family member, no, that’s a different feeling entirely. Relative, no, best friend, no, I’m delaying in saying because I wonder if anyone could understand, were I to say that I have never met and may never meet five individuals whom I care for perhaps more intensely than anyone.

My belief is that almost everyone experiences a feeling such as this, an undying attachment that you can’t explain or fear you would explode if you tried, yet one that is absolutely and interminably there every waking hour of the day. It’s the thing only you know about because you’ve been through it all, but the thing you have trouble telling anyone else for fear they might laugh--or even worse, try to pass it off as less significant than you know it is. It’s a unique and remarkable affliction, a disease that you’ve caught and now carry permanently. An obsession so immense it has passed the point of obsession and is rushing towards the point of that something for which a word has not yet been invented--a word different than ‘obsession’ or ‘love’, one that is stronger, implying more.

Or maybe I’m the only person on earth who holds love such as this, and I’m making a fool of myself by babbling incoherently.

But I don’t think so.

It is both a perfect and painful way to love. Perfect in that it is eternally present, no matter how physically far apart we are, for we have never met face to face, although I feel as if I know each person like the back of my own hand. Perfect in the sense that our relationship can never be darkened by nasty words or insults. Perfect how I can observe each individual from a distance and yet still become intimately entangled in their lives.

Unfortunately, it’s also a painful love. Painful for them to be thousands of miles away, painful that they quite possibly don’t know of my existence and therefore cannot return the love that I feel so deeply... painful that when any of them is in danger or anguish, I am left to suffer in my own worries and grief for them, being utterly helpless.

I realise that this love has disadvantages. I also realise that I have no choice in the matter, and I feel confident that this is something many people can attest to. Like a limb, this feeling is attached to us, something we cannot get away from and carry with us wherever we go.

How fortunate I was to become acquainted so uniquely with these people. How I might have never missed the knowledge I so desperately needed, how life might have passed me by in a shaft of light. For five people who have taught me, essentially, the beauty of life, deserve to be loved only in this fashion.

You’ve probably noticed my lack of mentioning who these people are. The fact of the matter is, you don’t care. If I told you, it wouldn’t mean anything at all - what means something is what I HAVE told you, which is the way I feel, the way I believe we all must feel at some point in order to know that we are really living.


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