Young Love

Never mind that she is moving to a school less than 1 mile from our house.

Never mind that since he has fallen in love with her, he has quit interacting with her completely.

Never mind that he has been in love with a different girl every year since preschool.

Never mind that he is only 8 years old.

Jack thinks he is in love, his love is moving, and he is brokenhearted.

And as is typical when Jack has something on his mind, it came pouring out 10 minutes into his bedtime. Only this time instead of being a long, sad, profound conversation, it ended being more of a goofy, giggly talk because his younger brother was sleeping over in his room. And that's probably a good thing. Because I don't know how to explain to him that he's not in love. I don't know how to tell him that what he thinks he's feeling can't be real because he's too little to understand love. But maybe he does. Maybe he has found love in its most innocent, purest form. Who am I to tell him what he's feeling is not love?

So we talked about her, and how he could still see her because she won't be far. And I reminded him of his past loves and how he thought he would never be over them, only to fall in love each year with someone new. I reminded him of his Kindergarten love, and how he never thought he'd survive without her.

"But I was dumb about love then. D-U-M-B. Dumb. I asked her to kiss me. In Kindergarten. In front of everybody. When I looked at her, all my eyes could see was blackness."

I think he meant he was blinded by love.