I’m Re-Learning to Live in My Heart
What that means after years of denying myself happiness, joy, laughter, love, excitement and passion
The first time I fell in love was with a boy who I played with at preschool. His name was Cody and I was four years old. Our mothers were friends and chatted easily while we played with his toy horses in the yard. In this childhood place, I knew that spending time with Cody was fun, that it made me feel safe when he told me he was also scared by an earthquake, and that was all I needed to know. In that childhood place, I hadn’t yet learned to question these things.
When I was 13 years old, I met another boy — Steve — briefly, but for some reason I was smitten. He lived in another town, and that seemed romantic. Maybe that’s all it took. He also had a spiky head of red hair, which I’m coming to understand might be my type. But this time, my mother didn’t sip tea on the porch while I learned lessons for myself. Instead, she tried, with the best of intentions, to guide me to the lesson she thought I should learn: that Steve was not worth my affections. “Why do you like him? What is it about him?” These questions may or may not have been asked in exasperation — that is how I remember them though. And it’s how I remember these questions sounding every single time I had even a crush on someone.
