how many heartbreaks

How many could be solved if kids would listen to those of us who are older and wiser thru experience than they are? My younger SD came home from school yesterday crying because she found out that her recently ex boyfriend was dating someone else, who had also been one of her friends. So I let her cry in my arms and then we came up with a plan of attack which involves her giving all his stuff back---what that entails I don't know, as it is all in her room at her mom's. Then she tells him that the being friends thing is not going to work and he just needs to stay away from her so she can go on with her life. I've already talked to the boy's mom and told her the same thing. Nothing against her, and she understands that, but he made a decision and he is going to have to live with it, just as Kate will have to work thru her end of it as well. By the end of the evening, I had her laughing and being more herself again.

Out of all my kids, she probably gets to me the most when she cries. Maybe because she doesn't do it. She has always let stuff roll off her back, just like her dad, but about once a year or so, something hits her hard and she cries. And it kills me to see. Even when she had some complicity in whatever situation it was. Like this one. It doesn't mean I let her off the hook, and she has never used it just to get her way with me, like Sis has done and Lil Sis can do too. The boys have cried too, but as they get older, they seem to get wiser. Maybe it's from watching the girls and all they do, and when any of them get to that point, I listen and comfort.

And saying I told you so just doesn't seem right. Even though me and her dad have said it, and in this situation, we both remember being that age and pinning our hopes on that one person, only to have them dashed. I'm glad Kate had the idealism and innocence enough to have the girlish dreams I remember so well. I hate to see them disappear. But they will come back, hopefully when she has grown up a bit more, and hopefully whatever guy inspires them will be man enough to respect her and her dreams and be much more careful of them than this guy turned out to be. And Kate knows, in her head, that this wasn't meant to last. But convincing the heart, well, that takes a little more doing sometimes.

So guys remember, we may be old(!?), but when it comes to love, we remember every detail of every heartbreak we ever had. And in advising you to stay free, and not tie yourself to one person so young, and to behave yourselves when dating (knowwhutImeanVern?), we know what we are talking about, and it's not that we don't want you to grow up and be in a loving relationship that lasts for a lifetime----we advise you like we do BECAUSE we want that very thing. We want you to have the love of a lifetime, and for it to last that lifetime.

And we don't want you to have to shed the tears we did.

Maybe unrealistic, but still a hope.