From the days gone by of passing notes in school and long curly phone cords that wrapped around to the next room to the modern day texting and skyping, relationships and heartbreaks remain the same but with a different frame around them......
Recently I have watched my 2 children at home go through some break ups and heart breaks. As a mom, all I want to do is protect my children. I want to hug them and tell them it is okay and it won't happen again, but we all know that it WILL happen again. Only, it won't just be their sweet hearts, it might be their best friends or the death of their fur babies, or who knows what else. And once again, I will want to be there to put my arms around them and protect them from the pain. Yet, I know that pain is what will build their character, help them learn and grow, and hopefully not make them jaded to love and trust again. And at times, I'm not going to lie, all I have wanted to do was reach out and touch the person who broke my child's heart. (But that's just the mama bear in me and since I couldn't hurt a fly, that certainly isn't going to happen....but sometimes the thought is entertaining. I will say, however, that the older they get and the deeper the pain caused, the one who caused the pain is less likely to get a warm reception from me the next time I see them.)
All of this brings back memories of my own teenage heart breaks gone by. Both the ones where my heart was hurt and the ones where I did the hurting. I wonder how my parents felt, or how the other parents felt. I also wonder how technology plays into the heart ache as opposed to how it played out back when I was a kid and all we had were push button phones and notes we hand wrote ourselves and passed around in school.
I remember having big crushes on boys (before Tracy came along). Most of these boys didn't reciprocate my feelings, but there were a few who did.
I was a bonafide "rink rat". From a very early age, I lived in the Thunderbird Roller Rink. I took lessons on Saturday morning, skated the Saturday afternoon sessions and every Friday night, I was there skating with my friends. I LIVED in the roller rink. I knew everyone who worked there and everyone who skated there. I had the biggest crush on the DJ who had this amazing 1970's afro and wore the best double knit bell bottoms and crazy patterned blousey shirts. His name was Elmer. He was in high school and he was my skating instructor. He could dance like none other on skates. My heart broke when I met his girlfriend. *sigh* But that is okay. Friday nights, I had a steady roller skating boyfriend. His name was Reid. Everyone knew we belonged together. Every couples' skate was ours. This went on for years. It didn't make a difference how much bullying I went through in my every day life, at the roller rink I was queen. I could dance. I was the fastest girl on skates and I had a boyfriend! Till one day, I didn't. He broke up with me for a girl who was older than me. And my heart broke. To be honest, I do not remember much about my heart break, except that I know it hurt. I do not remember anything about how my mom handled it or what she might have said to me.
In 6th grade I was "going with" (what we called it back in my day) a boy named Maximo. He was from the Dominican Republic and couldn't speak a lick of English, and I couldn't speak a lick of Spanish. Well, okay, I could count to 10 in spanish and that is exactly what I did around him. (Like a peacock showing off its beautiful feathers, I would spin around on the wooden prayer alters in the front of the church with Maximo beside me and I would count....uno...dos...tres..... showing him that I could speak his language, or at least try.) In order for us to get this far in our "relationship" we had to depend on his cousins to help us communicate (for the most part). Language barrier be damned, we knew we liked each other and that was all we needed. At Christmas he gave me a huge candy cane with a Christmas card in which he hand wrote, "Happy Christmas and Merry New Year! Love, Maximo" Broken English at its finest. All was right in my world. We had been "going together" for a couple of months. We only saw each other in church on Sundays and possibly Wednesdays. When our church group went out Rollerskating, I was excited to play the part of the peacock again, and show off my amazing skating skills. I NEVER fell. I was a dancer! I was trained in figure skating and I could disco skate and I LOVED to dance! And I was fast. No one could beat me in a race. I was a double threat! *laugh* But best of all, I got to couple skate with him. We held hands and we skated. Maximo did NOT know how to skate. He was a little like watching a baby horse learn to stand up on all fours right after being born. He was very wobbly to say the least. When we were couple skating, something happened and he fell, making me fall too. That was it. It was over with. I didn't care how much I liked him or how much he liked me. No one makes me fall. I broke up with him. My mom was none to happy with me for breaking up with a boy because he couldn't roller skate and made me fall. Maximo was the sweetest boy. He went back to the Dominican Republic shortly after that, but I was constantly asking when he would return. There was just something about him. As a matter of fact, I continued having dreams about him well into my 30's until I finally found him again via the internet and we exchanged a few emails. He remembered the card he wrote me and we laughed. I'm still friends with his cousins on facebook, and all the old memories make me smile. But I know that at one time, I broke this boy's heart over something so very silly.
There were other boys between Maximo and Tracy. One broke up with me cause I kicked his butt in our Tae Kwon Do class. It wasn't my fault that we were the same size and our instructor matched us up and Tim insisted on wearing his tight tight jeans instead of a gui. *laugh* How did he expect to move and kick in those jeans??? This was a boy that I had been crushing on for a couple of years. We spent almost every day together riding our bikes after school. But then all of a sudden, he wanted nothing to do with me cause I kicked his butt in class. *laugh* He is another boy that I dreamed about well into my 30's and even my 40's until I found him on Facebook and I knew he was "okay". I know when he broke my heart, I cried. But again, I do not know what my mom knew or how she reacted. There were other boys from my church that I crushed on and I had my heart bruised if not broken. It happens. What's a girl to do?
Then came Tracy. In the nearly 5 years of dating before we got married, we broke up 4 times. 3 times, he broke up with me (none of them lasted more than over night). He broke up with me cause of other girls. He liked other girls. He kissed other girls. His mom was strongly encouraging him to date other girls and NOT me, so to make her happy he would go out with the other girl, kiss her, then feel horrible and break up with me. We cried and cried and cried each time he did that. It was heart wrenching. But the next day, he would call and we would get back together again. I'm certain my mom saw me crying. I'm certain she must have hurt for me. But when Tracy and I got back together again, she never said a word. Then years into our relationship, after I had accepted the promise ring that meant we would eventually get engaged (when we were old enough..cause Tracy proposed to me at 15 years old), I broke up with Tracy. It was my turn to crush his heart. I had a crisis of conscience. I was good Christian girl and being sexually intimate was killing me. I didn't want to go to hell. I couldn't keep asking for forgiveness and then sinning all over again. I knew it wasn't going to stop, so breaking up was the only thing I could do. It killed me. It killed him. But to be fair, it killed me just a little less, cause I started dating a boy I had met at church camp right after I broke up with Tracy. *laugh* I had made my decision to break up with Tracy while I was at church camp, and this boy worked at the camp and listened to my woes all week long. Little did I know, that while he was listening to my woes, he was plotting against me. While I thought he was "coming to God" and supporting me in my quest to become virginal again, he was really thinking, "If I can get her to break up with her boyfriend and start dating me, then I can get her to have sex with me!" PIG! *laugh* Anyway, it didn't take long for me to figure out his plan and my response to him was..."If I am not going to have sex with a boy that I absolutely love and had planned to marry, WHY would I have sex with YOU????" Ya, that relationship didn't last. I missed my Tracy and this new boy found a girl who would give him what he wanted. Tracy and I got back together a month later and have not been apart since.
I KNOW I shattered Tracy's heart. And I KNOW his mom knew. She didn't like me much anyway, so I can only imagine how much LESS she liked me after shattering Tracy's heart. Ironically, I really thought I was doing what was best for our eternal souls, yet I was blamed for Tracy's fall out with his Christian faith. *laugh*
Fast forward.....my kids are grown up and dating. I have watched my children in relationships. I watched when Nick had his heart shattered and there was nothing I could do for him. But He did come to me one day and talk it out with me and ask my advice. It was the best conversation I have ever had with him (or at least the one I will remember the most), and I am so grateful to have been able to have that conversation with him. Recently, I have watched Nate get his heart squashed and handed back to him on a silver platter. This kind of heart break, I can not even begin to understand as it was about more than just some girl, it was about losing the girl and two little boys he counted as his own. I am not going to lie and say I did not want to hurt the person who caused my boy so much pain. Yet, I also have to say that I was a bit relieved; I supported my son and his decisions but I knew the hard work that was ahead if he had stayed in that relationship. Then there is Omi girl. Aside from her 5th grade boyfriend, who lasted several months if not the entire school year, her "relationships" last about a week maybe 2. Each break up she tells me about. She is a bit sad but usually doesn't cry too much. She would tell me, "Mom, he broke up with me, but it's okay. I'm fine." And there would be no tears. She would just bounce right back up. Until this last one. This last boy she has liked for quite a while, and he finally asked her out. These days they call it "going out" or "dating" even if there is no actual dating happening. Like her mom, Omi is a rink rat. But I have seen her. There is much more sitting and socializing than there is actual roller skating happening. *laugh* She was finally dating the boy she really liked. And she even got her first kiss from this boy. She told me about her first kiss and giggled and blushed. It was too cute. And just this past Friday we went in to meet this boy and he walked her to the doors of the rink to say goodbye. He held her in his arms and she looked up at him. I saw the look of complete smitten-ness in her eyes. Yup, she had it bad. Then two days later, she comes out of her room in tears. The boy had broken up with her. When I asked her why, her response, "Because he likes someone else." *sigh* All I could do was hold her and let her cry. I do believe that if she had not kissed him, this would not have hurt so much, but alas, the first kiss was given.
So where does technology fit into all of this? I have no idea how this boy broke up with Omi. He lives a good 20 minutes, maybe even 30 minutes away. I know that the two of them skyped each other almost nightly. (When I was a kid, we would talk on the phone and stare at pictures of our sweeties or just remembered what they looked like. If you were lucky, you had a stuffed animal that your sweetie gave you that you got to hold onto and cuddle with while you talked to your heart's desire.)
Now they have phones that take pictures and can be sent to each other. They have computers to skype or facetime so they can see each other when they talk. Half the time they don't even talk on the phones, they just text each other. Did this boy, call her voice to voice to break up with her? Did he text her? Did they skype to break up? I don't know. But back in my day, it was done face to face.....or sometimes in a note that was passed around by friends. (Which I guess isn't any worse than a text.) But then there is the ever rotating relationship status on facebook. One week they are in a relationship and the next they aren't and the whole world sees it. Or one week it says a girl is in a relationship with Tom and the next week it says Randy. *laugh* I'm sure its just the kids way of shouting to the world.."Hey I got a boyfriend/girlfriend!" Isn't that the first thing we used to do when the boy of our dreams asked us to go with them? We jumped on the phone and we called all of our friends. But now, the kids don't have to make a bazillion phone calls, they just have to change their relationship status on facebook. Maybe it's a time saver. But I just see it as something a little strange and odd. Maybe it's the old fashioned person in me who thinks stating you are in a relationship the minute a boy ask you to "date" him is a bit premature; maybe you should wait until that "relationship" last more than a few days? I also might be a bit jaded. If you are constantly changing your relationship status to "in a relationship" with a different person every other week, won't the bullies of the world start talking? Why give them ammunition? Back in my day, if a girl went from boy to boy, she would get a reputation that is hard to live down. Does that same thing happen with the changing of the relationship status on facebook? I don't know.
Man for the fist time in my life, I am feeling a bit "old" when it comes to technology and modern relationships. *laugh* I long for the days of notes that get passed through a chain of friends through school. I miss the days when you had one phone line in a house and if you wanted any privacy during a phone call, you had to hope and pray your parents bought the longest curly cord possible so it would reach around the corner to the next room away from listening ears and you hoped and prayed no one picked up the receiver that was in the other room!
Awwww, here's to love...the joys and the heartbreaks.
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