You Don't Know What Love Is

I hear people say all of the time (and am guilty myself of saying ) "You don't know what love is."  We say it to teenagers constantly.  They say, "I love you" to their boyfriends/girlfriends and we say, "You have NO idea what love even is." While I was discussing this the other day, though, I came to a different conclusion and I'd like to share a different perspective.

First of all, let me share that the conversation didn't take place with a bleeding heart teenage girl that claims to be desperately in love with her twenty five year old boyfriend.  It was a conversation with an autistic child.  The child was discussing the fact that they are always told that they don't understand feelings because they have a hard time reading social cues.  He was telling me that he DOES understand feelings; he's still a person, but everyone assumes that he has no idea what emotion people are struggling with.  He said that because he can't put those feelings into words, sometimes, schoolmates assume that he doesn't feel anything or, at the very least, doesn't feel things the way that they feel them.  It was a heartwrenching but very, very real conversation.  It affected me in so many ways but one of them was this very post.

I watch the teenage girls around me talk about how they are in love.  I'm guilty of saying that they have no clue because they don't love how I love (or how adults, in general love) but that's not true.  Teenagers DO know what love is. Love doesn't have some defined box that it fits into.  Just because it's not the exact same experience that I feel or that my friends feel or that my grandfather and grandmother feel, it doesn't mean they don't know what love is.  What I've started to say, instead, is this: "You have no idea how much your love grows as you get older."  More often, though, I just say, "I'm so glad that you've found happiness."  The reality is that their relationship may not last because their maturity level isn't there yet.  Then again, that's true with some adults too.  To say that they don't understand love or that they don't know what love is, though, just isn't accurate.  It's just a different love.

Love can be between a man and a woman or people of the same sex.

Love can be between a biological parent and their child, an adopted parent and their child, a foster parent and their child.

Love can be between a married couple or an unmarried couple.

Love can be a biological grandparent or it can be a surrogate grandparent.

Love can be so many amazing things.  It doesn't have to look the same in every person.  In fact, it is SUPPOSED to look different because we're different people.  Will the way we express and, even, feel love change as we get older?  Of course.  Everyone evolves over time.  However, it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist just because it's different than what we experience.