A young girl lay on her
flower print comforter staring in a
happy daze into the distance. A photograph of her
young lover was clutched close to her
chest and her eyes had a happy far-away look to them as she dreamed of cute
suburban houses and white picket fences and living happily ever after with
the boy of her dreams.
I think I'm in love, she said to herself.
But being the young and
un-worldly wise child that she was, she decided to seek
a second opinion. She ran out of her room and out of the house and down the street to her grandmother's house.
"Grandma Grandma!" She yelled as she bounced in the front door.
"Why, what is it child?"
"Grammy, I think I'm in love."
"Oooh child..." The kind old woman laid a wrinkled and experienced hand over the young and naive hand of her grandaughter. "
Describe to me what it feels like."
The girl, breathless and trembling, tried as best she could to describe the feeling.
"My stomach..
it turns and it flutters and whenever I think about him or talk to him or see him I almost feel
nauseous, but it's a
good nauseous, and
my chest feels so full, it feels like it's going to explode out of my body if I make another move! And my heart is pounding all the time and
the world just looks beautiful to me and whenever I hear his voice I melt away and all I can think of is me and him together forever."
"My dear," the grandmother replied, "That most certainly is love! Now go run to him and see him and hold onto him because love is a very precious thing."
The girl ran out of her grandmother's house,
into the bright sunlight and twirled around. I'm in love! But love is such an important thing, that she decided she wanted to be absolutely sure about it. So she decided to seek a third opinion.
She ran to school to talk to her favorite teacher. She burst into the room and the teacher was sitting there
grading papers, and the teacher just looked up with a smile.
"
Teacher teacher! I think I'm in love!"
The teacher smiled reflectively at the young girl, crossed his arms, and said "Tell me what it feels like, and I'll tell you if I think it's love or not."
"Well, I feel it most in my stomach.. it's like.. butterflies are flying around in there. And the back of my neck is always tingling, and I can't stand to be away from him, and I feel like
my chest is just going to EXPLODE out of my body!!"
The teacher chuckled and said "Sweetie, that's absolutely love. No doubt about it. Congratulations for finding it at such a young age."
The girl giggled and jumped around a few times before she ran out of the room and all the way down the street back to her house so she could call her lover on the phone and hear his sweet voice in her ear.
As she burst in the door she smelled her mother
cooking dinner in the kitchen. Eager to share this great news, she ran into the kitchen.
"Mother mother! Guess what! I'm in love!!!"
The mother gave a discerning look to her daughter. "Hunny,
tell me what it feels like and I'll tell you if it's love or not."
"Well mom, my tummy feels like it's just
churning and
moving and
squirming like
butterflies are inside of me and flying around, and my chest feels so big, like my insides feel like they're just going to explode right out of me!!!"
The mother frowned at her daughter and walked over to the cabinet and took out
a bottle of pills.
"You foolish girl, that's not love. It's
indigestion. Here, take this." And she shoved a
Tums in the young girl's mouth.
The girl swallowed, stood there for a moment, pulled out the photograph of her lover and looked at it. The feeling was gone. She set it down on the kitchen table and quietly retreated into her bedroom. She laid down on her flower print comforter and stared up at the ceiling and began to quietly dream of
a volatile and professional career in the computer industry.