There Are No Instructions for A First Broken Heart

Children do not come with instruction manuals.  Like any new product, I firmly believe they should.  As a matter of fact, why should only one family per week benefit from Super Nanny’s knowledge? I think Jo should capitalize on her child rearing knowledge and develop that manual! 

Infancy is easy.  Pat here to burp, rock in a consistent swaying motion to quiet crying.  Feed here.  Have plenty of Tide Pens ready for spit up stains.   It all seems simple enough.  Around the age when you expose your child to other children it gets a bit more complicated.  Issues like parents who send children to day care while they are carrying what all parents know as “the crud.  Solution – visit pediatrician…get icky thick pink stuff.  School brings more questions.   “Hey Mom….why does my classmate have two Moms instead of a Mom and Dad?” Accccck!  Deal with child in a matter of fact voice, and explain according to family values and religious beliefs.

Before you know it you are smack in the middle of the dreaded teenaged years.  Suddenly, the little girl that once kissed a worm in your friend’s back yard notices …. (Gasp….) boys!

Rule # 1 –Teenaged boys are walking hormones, therefore, boys lie.  Boys Lie.  Boys will say anything to get into your pants and do anything to get you into their pants.  BOYS LIE is required memorization for every teen girl.

Once they ignore that with a burning determination you wish they would apply to cleaning their rooms, the inevitable happens.  The dreaded first broken heart appears and suddenly you wish someone told you before you had this child that you would feel everything that they feel.  The problem is you feel is from a parent’s point of view…and that is magnified a million times.

Broken hearts are bad enough; however, they are worse when they are suffered as the result of betrayal by your “best friend”.   Even worse – your best friend begins accusing you of things that you aren’t doing to deal with her guilt.

Rule # 2 – No friend that values a boyfriend more than they value a loyal friend is worth calling a friend.

These are two lessons that are the first of many that will count.  Most importantly, they are two situations where adult reason makes sense, but your heart is still shattered in a million tiny pieces.  That my dear is called commonly called irony.

This is the time Moms and Dads everywhere will do everything within their power to take the pain away, all the while knowing that no matter what they say or do,the child must still swallow this bitter pill.

So – I’ll go get the crazy glue and a quart of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey and get ready to have a shoulder full of tears and such ….heaven knows my little girl is growing up and I’m going to need those Tide pens again…but this time they will be removing mascara.

Love As A Concious Decision

Did you ever have a lightbulb moment?  Someone makes a comment and suddenly that comical image appears above your head and sheds 150 watts of brilliant, insightful light on a thought you’ve been struggling to understand for decades.

When I returned to school several years ago, I didn’t have the first clue about the Professors at the College.  I had returned with the intention of obtaining access to a highly revered nursing program.  The first semester back, I decided to take classes I knew I could handle so that I could get used to the demands of being a single parent, who held a full time job and attended school.

I lucked out.  My English Professor was one of the best in the world.  He is the type of teacher that believes that teaching is more than giving you notes.  Dr. Snyder believed in prompting independent and deep thought.

On the first night of class, his announced that there was one perfect being, and He wasn’t sitting in our classroom.  Dr. Snyder did not give A’s.  Rather than allowing my bubble to burst, I worked hard and opened my mind to endless possibilities I would not have conceived six months earlier. 

I discovered many things in this class.  My love of Shakespeare and ability to analyze his works has me convinced that I had to have spent time with the man in a former life.  I discovered that I wrote well, that I thought deeply and that being a nurse was not what I was meant to be.

Most importantly on that first night, Dr. Snyder, while discussing the deeper meanings in works of literature brought up the novel Tess D’Ubervilles.  An eighteenth century french work, it was rather racy for the time period.  A peasant becomes impregnated outside of marriage and gives birth to a bastard son.  When she breaks free of her servitude and the “employer” that fathered the child, she meets a man and they are eventually married.  Tess hid her son for the duration of the relationship and finally revealed his existance after the marriage. 

Her husband was so infuriated that he left her.  She returned to a life of servitude, financial struggles and miserably low social status.

Many years later, her husband returns to the village.  Tess cordially welcomes him into her home, preparing his meal, a warm bath and his bed.

He asked her then “How can you treat me so kindly after what I have done to you?” 

Tess simply replies “Once having decided to love you, I will love you forever”

That is one of the greatest lines in Literature.  Love is a conscious decision.  It is not something we stumble or fall into.  It is something that grows, that forgives and most importantly…endures.

That night Dr. Snyder changed my life.  I knew that I would never again settle or mistake attraction for love.  I knew that when I did give of myself, it would be one hundred percent, and it would be forever.

I attained that desperately sought after A, but more importantly I have learned to look beyond the words, into the mind of a writer, and into my own soul.