Love

Written by a teenager, what is truly on her mind.

My name is Jamie. I am fourteen years old, and I happen to be engaged.

I know, some of you might be reading this upon reading some of my later work, and not have the slightest clue what I'm talking about, the fact that I am so young. You may think, 'HA! I knew it!' Or you might just not read this, as many would decide not to. It is your choice.

I am curious. Very curious for my age, curious about things that people my age would not tend to be curious about. But, having been put through the mental scarring and having known what I have known, and after hearing the opinions of people around me, I have come upon a question for the teenage mind to ponder.

What is love?

That is a very broad sweeping subject, I know, but it could be split into different parts, which is precisely what I'm going to try to do.

For one: the word 'love' is carelessly thrown about for small, frivolous things. Such as my much-used statement, 'I love cheese tacos.' How many people take the time to think about what it is they truly, really love??

But I am not going anywhere with that last statement, so I will leave it alone. I came here to get a little bit off my chest, not rationalize an emotion that has such control over our lives that it CANNOT be rationlized, and should not be.

What I really want to know is why people who are older than the youthful teenage years seem to think they are so much better than us when it comes to about everything? I mean, really. Power abuse, much?

They seem to think we have no mind of our own, as near as I can tell. One thing I am confused about is the love thing.

For example:

I was on the phone with a boy I love very much. His mom was listening into our conversation, and when he had to go, he said he loved me.
At that point, his mother promptly laughed at him and told him that he was only sixteen, and he didn't even know what love was.

Teenagers at vocal contests get critiqued harshly on songs about love because the judges think we do not know what we are singing about. The only love we are supposedly in the know of is the love for God, which I happen to have no propblem with.

But this is wrong, in so many ways. Unconstitutuional. Mindless. Cruel.

Heartless.

That, most of all.

Heartless.

It is my belief that when children hit their teenage years, they are not turning rebellious. They have finally learned enough about the world, in these double digit years, to grow a mind of their own and see what their parents are doing is somewhat wrong.

Now, this does not apply to all teenagers, you see. There are some teenagers that have nothing wrong, really, and are just turning rebellious for the reason of lack of something to do, or maybe their sense of right and wrong is just the tiniest bit whacked out.

But their are some teenagers who do have it bad, have it tough, and do get enough sense to try and fight back.

But I am getting off the subject, once again. This is the subject of love, not love-hate relationships of parents and their teenagers.

So, I come again full-circle, and I ask again.

What is love?

It spreads out wide and holds us, and we learn from it. It is the language of the heart, the tugging of gentle harpstrings across the soul. It is hauntingly beautiful.

It is the feeling we have for our god, be it the Mother Earth who spreads life through us all and calls us back to her core when our times is done, or be it God and the trinity, loving enough to send his only son so we might live eternally with him in heaven.

It is the feeling we share for our family, the pain when they are lost or the warmth when they are home.

It is the snapping of the harpstrings when an animal or a friend, a family member or a lover dies. The pain we feel as we are hunched over, crying so hard we cannot breathe, or clutching that cold, loved thing ot our chest, not caring that it no longer breathes, not minding that it no longer has a heart that beats.

It is what I feel for my friends, my family... my cats, my dog... and for people who I love so much that they are not quite friends, and not quite family to me anymore.

That closes my end of the deal, but my question still stands on your end. You are free to answer as you may.

What is love to you?