Love at 12

Love is such a simple thing when you’re twelve.

Your favorite food is pizza, you go to all the football games, and love is as easy as two plus two. If you like Bobby and Bobby likes you and someone actually had the gall to admit it to someone who told Jamie’s best friend who told Lisa who told Mark and Kelly who told Amber not to tell but she did and it got back to you, you’re in Heaven because you’re in love.

Yes, when you’re twelve, you never think of the people who lost the loves of their lives in wars, in shootings, during childbirth, in car accidents, during surgeries, after heart attacks, after strokes, during floods. You never consider that people other than you had met someone, fallen in love, and began to start a family when they found out their lover was cheating on them. You never think of the people who thought they were in love and got dumped like a bad habit. The people who died without saying “I love you” don’t exist, and those who aren’t feeling the reciprocation of love are people in far off lands nowhere near you. No, I am twelve and I am Bobby’s girlfriend now, and none of these things are real except for the fact that Bobby loves Andrea and Andrea loves Bobby. This is reality.

I am twelve and Bobby and me are sitting in science class. I am waiting for him to pass me a reply to the note I sent him earlier asking him if he wants to go to the football game with me. I see him talking to Joey but he isn’t writing me back. I hate him, he is a such a jerk. I am his girlfriend and he is ignoring me. I will have to not speak to him and expect him to know why all day today until he says he’s sorry. We are in love and this is how it goes.

I am twelve and Bobby is my boyfriend. I am not thinking of the people who once were in love and fell out of it. I am not aware of the people who loved someone so much they let them go, the people who married someone they didn’t love, the people who went away and came back to find the one they love is in love with another. I don’t care about the people who are afraid to tell someone they love them and I couldn’t ever imagine being one of those people who has to choose between two loves. I am twelve and Bobby is in love with me, I am certain.

We are twelve and we won’t know for a few years that love comes with time and time can maim and create. We won’t know for a few years yet that love is something you can’t describe. We’re not aware that love isn’t always good and isn’t always bad; love just is. We don’t know that you can love someone and not know it and you can know it and not want to. We can’t understand that love has no boundaries, that love transcends race, color, breed, and status. Love to us is between the prepubescent basketball player and the field hockey goalie. We don’t realize that love is something you can never forget. We don’t yet know that you cannot pick who you fall in love with.

We are twelve and to us love is saying you like someone who likes you back. Love is sitting nervously next to them at football games. Love to us is still dancing a slow dance at homecoming with them. Love is being one of the only “couples” in the grade. Love is not painful to feel like it sometimes is, love is not blissful. We don’t yet know that love can drive people to do amazing things and love can drive people to their deaths. We don’t know right now that love finds you whether you’re looking or not. We can’t comprehend that sometimes you fall in love with the wrong person.

Love is such a simple thing when you’re twelve.