Trying to keep my sanity in a house full of manly ball-scratching, burping, farting, and raised toilet seats.
Trying to keep my sanity in a house full of manly ball-scratching, burping, farting, and raised toilet seats. 
For all those who say that teens are incapable of being in love because they are too young, too immature, too whatever…then you must have never had the pleasure of being in love when you were a teenager.
Why do parents tell their kids….”oh hunny it’s just puppy love, you have no idea what being in love is?” Or they talk about being in love as if it’s something that only happens to adults? Are you kidding me?
Teenage love, first teenage love to be more specific, is probably the most rawest, unconditional, untainted love that could exist. And noooooo, I’m not talking about “crushes” or “puppy love” like everyone likes to call them; I’m talking about real “I’m in love with you” and “I picture myself growing old with you” kind of love.
Oh, hold up, I bet you don’t think that a teenager is capable of seeing themselves with their first love as wrinkly old people? No, wait, you think teenagers just talk through their hormones right? Hey, that some teenagers swap boyfriends and girlfriends like they do their underwear and are only looking to score a base or even a homerun, yes, I don’t argue that, but there are exceptions.
Introducing my favorite teenage couple: Ana & Felipe.
Aren't they the cutest??
Felipe is not my biological son, but has slowly leeched onto my heart and sealed the deal the day he started calling me mom; so he is now unofficially my adopted son.
Felipe and Ana started off as best friends. Both were repulsed by the idea of “love” and would vomit at the thought of it ever happening to them. But as love stories would go, love would find them. After being boyfriend and girlfriend for four blissful months school came to an end and they would receive devastating news. Ana would be going to Ecuador for the whole summer.
“What am I gonna do all summer without seeing her?” I remember him asking the last day of school as we sat at a table at On The Border with my son’s and a few friends. But the shimmering light at the end of a long, hot and lonely summer was that the new school year would find them together at the same high school (something I had a little role in making happen).
Unfortunately, that light would begin to dwindle as the situation of the distance between Ana and Felipe would go from bad to worse.
A few weeks after Ana had left to Ecuador Ana told Felipe that her parents were talking about keeping her in Ecuador an extra month and that she would miss the first month of school. Of course Felipe started freaking out because the high school they had been accepted to would drop her if she missed a month of school. Then she started telling him that her parents were going to enroll her in school over there and she would be starting classes soon.
But the worse was yet to come.
About a week later, Ana left the following message on Felipe’s Facebook wall:
felipe, c: or should i say. poopy♥ i love you. we get along sooo goooodd. when i met you i thought we where going to be the best of friends. we never fought. EVER. ever. it was like a perfect match. we where perfect for each other i guess. and i still think love is crap. and i will alwys think love is crap. but you tottaly made me cha…nge my mind on the whole “LOVE” buisness. remember when we where just friend we played runescape together, and the next day in school you called me by my runescape name? LAWLZ. i’ll never forget that. or the time i went to new york. and you where the one i stayed up till 4 talking to. and yet, we where still friends. it’s really hard for me to type this. but i’m going to miss you so much. don’t ever forget me love. i love you so much. ♥ and when that day comes. i promise you.. this time.. i’ll never let you go^_^
alright?alright. untill the day we meet again. see you in 2 years bro. i love you c: DON’TFORGETMEplease, ♥?
Ok, I’ll admit it, the message brought tears to my eyes. And of course, my poor Felipe was devastated and beside himself. In an attempt to comfort their fallen comrade, Felipe’s buddies were advising him to let go and move on. One afternoon he asked me for my opinion,
“What should I do ma?”
“What do you wanna do?”
“I don’t know.” He was obviously torn up and confused.
“Do whatever feels right babe,” I told him. “Don’t listen to what the guys are telling you. You do what you want.”
Yeah, I know you’re probably thinking: she’s thousands of miles away, she’s going to be gone for two years, shit, she may never come back, he just needs to move on, there’s no point in him sitting around and waiting, he’s young, a new love will come along. And I suppose it’s all true. But why destroy an innocent, untainted love with our own personal afflictions? Do we really do it to “protect” our loved ones or our children from being hurt, or do we do it because deep down we’re envious of the experience of love they’re having and the happiness brings?
Hmmm, I guess no one would want to believe that though, right?
Anyways, so far there is no fairy tale ending to this love story. As a matter of fact, things got even more twisted. About two weeks after that message, Felipe received a phone call from Ana’s mom. She was calling to inform him that Ana had fallen and hit her head so hard that she was experiencing memory loss. Talk about when it rains, it pours! Turns out Ana didn’t remember Felipe as her boyfriend and couldn’t believe that they were a couple. Her memories only allowed her to recall their friendship.
You can imagine how my poor Felipe felt.
At her mother’s request, Felipe spent endless hours talking to Ana on the phone reminding her of all the things that had happened over the last year and of all her friends. And for as hard as it was for him to know that his love no longer saw him as her love, he stayed patient and loyal.
As of today Ana has recuperated most of her memories and the two remain a couple. She’s been gone for nearly 7 weeks now, but they haven’t lost hope of seeing each other again soon! <3
On a personal note, I think there’s value in learning something from teenage love. We, as adults, will never experience that raw love ever again. That’s a one time shot, and every bad thing or good thing that comes from it will forever set the precedence for our future loves. I’ve heard parents say that they don’t let their teenagers have a boyfriend or a girlfriend or be in a relationship because they are too young and don’t understand the complexities of a relationship. But really, at what age are we “ready” to be in a relationship and at age do we really understand how to be or behave in a relationship or how to be a “good” partner? At 25? 30? 40? 50? From what I’ve seen, most adults aren’t ready according to their own definition, hence the high divorce rates.
I think we can learn from teenage love.
Teenage love can teach us to be more patient, to be more forgiving, to be more loving and understanding. But most importantly, I think it can teach us to just love and to enjoy loving.
Peace Out!
-Natasha Olivera
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My journey into motherhood began when I was 17 years old. Today, I am the mother of two teen boys, 15 and 13, and I am one of the only moms "blogging" about raising teen boys. On this blog, which I like to call a "blogory", I share my candid, poignant, sometimes humorous, but always real, short stories about my stumbles through parenthood as a young mother raising two teen boys while coping with living in a house full of testosterone. My parenting philosophy revolves around honest, no holds barred communication, where no topic is off limits, mixed with an enormous sense of humor. Peace Out! -Natasha Olivera
© 2010-2013 2010 Me, My Guys, & My Stumbles Through Parenthood All Rights Reserved All Rights Reserved -- Copyright notice by Blog Copyright
What an amazing story – it gave me the chills – in a good way!
This is the stuff great love movies, or books ehhhmmmm, are made of.
Nothing anyone tells him is going to make it better…he’s just got to go through it.
I feel for your boy, the first time your heart breaks is the hardest….but in the words of (whoever it is that wrote the song) “…Well, I’ve been afraid of changing ’cause I built my life around you, But time makes you bolder, Children get older, Well I’m getting older to…”
Stay up Felipe!
We, as adults, will never experience that raw love ever again
I am not sure that I agree with you on that. I think that it is possible to experience again, albeit somewhat different.
beautiful (:
[...] love; it is a different kind of love then a 30 or at 50, but it is a love. Feel free to read “Who Says There’s No Such Thing as Teenage Love?”.) In that moment I figured the easy thing to do was blame my husband so I texted my friend back [...]
Hi–I found your site and I’m a blogging mom of teens too. I loved this article. My aunt and uncle married at 16 – nearly 43 years ago. Teen love happens
I could not agree with you more, I totally and without a doubt believe in teenage love. Not only are Ana and Felipe a perfect example, but I myself had the beautiful pleasure of being in love when I was 14. Everyone told us we were crazy, that we didn’t understand and that it wasn’t real love. I remember it would get me really upset because who were they to tell me that what I was feeling wasn’t love? What did they know about love? But over the years I realized that there is just different kinds of love at different stages of your life, but teenage love is real love. I know its crazy but trust me it was love, and I will never forget it. I also agree that teenage love is the “most rawest, unconditional, untainted love that could exist.” Because when you are young you may not understand much or care about much but you understand and care about each other, which in my opinion is the most fundamental thing about love. With teenage love, you are with each other simply because you want to be it is not because of sex or because they have money and a bright future or because your getting old so they will do. I think this is what makes teenage love so pure so real so raw and unconditional. Thus, when you are old love gets more complicated, but that does not make teenage love any less meaningful. I agree that we can learn from teenage love. I think teenage love can help people mature, it teaches you how to be in a relationship, how to value things and yes most importantly how to love and be loved. With teenage love you literally grow together, which is not something you don’t do in many relationships. I don’t think there should be any set age for when people are ready for relationships, everyone is different and everyone goes at a different pace. However, you are only young once and you can only have a teenage love once, I think more people should try it because why put an age on love? Love is the most natural and essential thing for happiness.
As I read this, I started tearing up. Hell, I’m still crying right now as I type this. That really is an amazing story, and beautiful in every way. I hope that they are doing well
.Being in love so young is a terrifying idea to me-so much can change so fast…people…circumstances, etc.- but so wonderful at the same time. I myself was a late bloomer when it comes to relationships. I agree that everyone has their own pace for this kind of thing…no one has a right to tell someone that what they are feeling isn’t real. Parents restricting their kids completely when it comes to relationships is detrimental, as a person needs experiences in order to learn and grow. I learned so much through previous two relationships I had (three if the dumb, possibly rebound thing I went through during summer semester is counted…). The guy I’m with now…even though he’s 24 and I’m 19 (soon to be 20 next May), the age makes no difference. We’re both so incredibly happy and care about each other so much, and I’m very sure that is what love /really/ feels like. We live literally 10 minutes from each other, so we’re able to see each other often and do small, adorable things together (such as driving in the pouring rain on a sunday night in my little pick-up to Cracker Barrel for lemonade and pancakes). We’re both young and have aspirations, but he’s told me that he sees us together “next year…and the year after that, and the year after that, and the year after that…”. I can’t wait to see what the future holds for us. 
Well with this topic I can talk from experience, as teenagers our emotions are almost heightened, we tend to feel more drastically and more purely. When we say we love we mean we love to death. I think that as teenagers we are begining to learn and experience the world around us, and when an emotion such as love hits us, it really sticks with us. Teenage love is real because is not based on past experiences and regrets of previous heartbreaks. As teenagers we are just learning to live, and loving others is part of that learning process. Another aspect of teenage love is the feeling you get when it ends, after the breakup of a first love we feel as though the world is coming to an end, our parents quickly tell us “you will get over it, just move on” but this is because they don’t really understand that a heartbreak in our teenage years will scar us for life. I think that perhaps parents choose not to remember this part of their lives, because maybe it still hurts them. For example when were babies and learning everything around us, something that hurt us such as a bug or a person, we build a resistance to such thing while growing up. This is the same thing with love, when we are hurt by it we tend to change our view about it so that it would never hurt us again. Love doesn’t have an age because it is something that has to be seen individually. We all learn to love at different rates and as such maybe age is not an impediment for love.
When reading this blog it was impossible to believe how things were getting worse everytime. Why is it that after a problem , a million more follow? It makes me so sad yet so happy to see how Felipe is unconditionally waiting to see her again . This story is the perfect example how teenage love does exist and can even be more pure and strong that what adults call “true love”.
But what do adults define as true love? I think I’m still too young to understand this adult ideas . Perhaps I’ll change my mind by the time I’m 30 and I’ll find myself telling my kids that teenage love doesnt exist. But I personally believe that those adults that admit not to believe in teenage love is because their first experiences with love failed and they’re hesistant to admit how it hurt them, or want to protect their kids from being hurt the same way.
There is no such thing as being old enough for love. Age doesnt define the ability to love. There is not a certain age in which you are ready to start loving. As a matter of fact I remember falling in love when I was 5 years old, and no one can tell me that just because it was innocent and a relationship never existed it wasnt love.
Exactly as you mentioned many adults are in a relationship, are married and although they are very old they still dont love like some teenagers do.
I hope Felipe reunites with his love so he could be happy , and so that he would be another example that teenagers can wait and love