There is something ageless about new love or even rediscovering love.

And by love I am mostly talking about the romantic kind, the kind that can sweep over us and hijack all  of our senses.

New love is a dizzy and weightless feeling. Can cause smiling for no reason and allow current stresses to spin away with the name of your beloved just popping up on your phone.

As an adult, new love is the closest we will get to revisit our childhood.

It’s like an unsuspecting ride in the Back to the Future DeLorean.

And in a manner of speaking it most certainly takes 1.21 jigowatts of electricity to get you back there.  Love, without a doubt, hits you light a bolt of lighting!

New love is like that first real summer night when your curfew is later than usual, school’s out and you are still playing outside because at 8:00 pm the sky is glowing from the sun.

In the beginning stages of it, especially when first knowing this new love is reciprocated, will sweep you back to a summer night at the playground. Grasping the smooth bars of the merry-go-round running as hard as you can, feet barely touching the ground your friend bookended on the other side, building up to maximum speed, both leaping on to the worn steel wheel you flatten yourselves upon your backs to enjoy the short but exhilarating feeling of what seems to a kid like weightlessness.

Spinning around, your legs dangle and your senses tickled by the faint wisps of grass grazing your dusty calves. Nothing matters except the gratifying force of all that running and the deliciousness of knowing there’s no school tomorrow.

Time stands still and you lay there not moving or talking until you feel the wheel stop turning and without hesitation, slightly dizzy, you both wobble upright, hold the metal rails and run like hell bursting into uncontrollable giggles, your cheek creases caked with dust from sweat and smiles.  Running and running you both leap back on again and again and again until someone’s Mom calls you home.

On the merry-go-round, there’s no fear or hesitation that the other person will run away, not stay on or not want to continue pushing the wheel till a mom calls.

And you both know that at some point the wheel will slow down and inevitably stop.

Sometimes your friend will jump off prematurely; start running and push to keep it going while you remain sprawled on your back. This feeling propels you to want to do the same for your friend the next time you feel it slowing. You too want them to experience the exhilaration as the speed changes and their concerns spin away with the new energetic forces of gravity.

New love feels similar to our childhood memories of the spinning merry-go-round weightless and trusting. Until the moment that adulthood and all its insecurities come rushing back in like a faint Mom’s come-home call. Until that point we are just giggly kids running in the ruts of the playground with our friend enjoying the scrumptious no-school night.

There’s something heartwarming to witness new love happen to someone who thought love had eluded them.

I personally love these stories because for many years while they provided for their families and did their best to set good examples for their kids, the chance at a spin on the merry-go-round of love can give them a potential opportunity to teach their adult children a new lesson.

Some may consider it the most valuable of all lessons.

As a parent, especially to grown children, this is an opportunity to show a vulnerable side they don’t typically see. Many of us children are a result of the new-love-merry-go-round-weightlessness; meaning we, as grown-ups, missed witnessing this child-like side of our parents. Giddy, nervous, and excited from a direct hit of the lighting bolt.

Sadly, as adults, we don’t willingly show this side of us. We, unlike children, view this giddy excited side as a weakness. But being vulnerable to the 1.21 jigawatts of adult time travel is important for kids, of all ages, to know is possible.

We grow up hearing our parents and grandparents’ love stories. These tales can lead an adult to think we missed the opportunity to grab the bars and leap on.

To have your children emulate you in-love would be the greatest of all flattering. Teach them; by showing them it’s safe to be open to love at any age. Let them see you spinning in love, childlike in your giggles and happiness.

Don’t be afraid to let your kids know that just because something they thought would work out didn’t, doesn’t mean they don’t get a merry-go-round partner.

Your new found adult love can give your child hope that after failed attempts or maybe just prior partners running at the wrong speeds, their partner may still be out there, just kicking around the proverbial dirt, waiting, for them, too.

So whether you, reader, are waiting for, witnessing, currently in, attempting to start back up or rediscovering: try to remember that love is glorious.
It’s ageless.
Embrace it.
Grab the bars and run with it.
Let yourself get hit by lighting.  And like a kid leap right on.

Love elephant and want to go steady?

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 Editorial Apprentice: Kimby Maxson/Editor: Catherine Monkman

Photo: Flickr