Friday, January 04, 2008

First Love, Testing Friendships, A Whole New World

As of December 15, Amanda has embarked on her first relationship with a boy named Chris. He attends another Catholic grammar school nearby, and has known Amanda for several years, first meeting her at (seriously), summer choir camp. He is completely in love with her and, all things considered, Ian and I have been very happy and supportive for Amanda in her first experience in romance. You go in preparing for the worst and when we met this sweet boy instead, we were disarmed.

He is an avid hockey player on a team his father coaches, and had been asking Amanda to attend one of his games for some time. We were finally able to work out her going one (on the 15th) after agreeing to meet him privately the night before, and he seemed very nice and sincere. His dad has been bringing her and one of her friends to the games. We met the father too, and that day was sort of an official blessing on both sides for the relationship to go ahead. He has a very solid family life which also makes us feel good about things, plus good taste in music, a personal plus for Ian and I.

While in the throes of it all, Amanda seems very happy and slightly skeptical about the future of the relationship all at once. Her feelings on love (for the moment) are that a person can love several people in the course of their life, but that they will only "fall" in love once. She has tried to seek out my feelings and says, "I see that look of reminiscing on your face, what do you think?"

I'm stumped. What do I say? I would have thought to say that some people may fall in love several times, but will only find true love-or their soul mate-once. But is that the only time you 'fall'?

This has also been a slightly trying time on one of her friendships, a girl who has brought Amanda to tears on several occasions because she feels Amanda is too wrapped up in her relationship. Tears, forgiveness, joy, the cycle has played over several times now. I really don't like how this chick is constantly testing my daughter's feelings, I didn't like the mind games when I was a teenager, or even as a young adult. Her other best friend has been very sweet and supportive, (my personal fave of the two, she towers at 6'2" and is just a very smart, goofy, sweet-hearted person.) Oh God, and this is just the beginning of the perilous mine fields of the teenage years!


All I know is, we're just trying to keep an eye on things, keep a running dialogue with Amanda, just taking things one day at a time.

3 comments:

Roe said...

Wow. I still can't believe Amanda's dating. I feel like you were just waddling over to visit us during a role-playing session and eat T-Bone diner delivery with us!

Teenage girls are rough. I hated the mindgames and the general b.s. that came with being one, and it makes me sad to know they're still going on. You will always have friends who feel like you're not paying them enough attention when you date someone, because there is a new party impacting the relationship.

Do you 'fall' more than once? I think you do. There's nothing like first love - except for the one that comes along and shows you that they may not have been the first, but by God, they will be the last.

I smile and remember who I was when I think of my first love, but I smile bigger when I think of Mike and the way he can make me laugh like no one else.

Lauren said...

What a tough question! I personally think that you can fall in love more than once, but what happens after that depends where you are in your relationship with yourself, and how well you know what you want from life.

Stacey said...

The thing I think I never realized as a kid was what love becomes after a long period of time. That sort of deep connection that you have after being together, like intuitively knowing what the other person in your relationship cares about and wants without even having to think about it. The being able to spend countless seemingly pointless hours together, and the time just passes without thinking about it.

I think you can certainly 'fall' more than once, but hopefully we all find that one person that putting in all the effort that a "relationship" takes really is worth it.