A Look Back At Love... < “MOMMY” Monta Vista High School guidance counselor, Sarah Freeman, weighs in on the relationships she has seen around the busy campus over the years and how they have affected her students.
Freshman Fling!
Some couples might not only attend the famous dance together, they might even end up together forever...and find their happily ever afters. “I love you, you love me, we’re a happy family, with a great big hug and a kiss from me to you…won’t you say you love me too?” –Barney.
In all honestly, I’d love to respond to Barney; tell him I love him too and satisfy him for a lifetime, but once again, in all honestly, I wouldn’t have the slightest clue of what I’m saying if I spat out the three words Barney begged me to say back to him. Eventually, Barney would realize that I didn’t know what I was talking about, and he would be hurt, wouldn’t he? That I told him I loved him even when I didn’t know what it meant? How could I say something when I don’t fully understand the meaning of it in the first place and expect to be believed? How can I simply throw out words and pretend like I’m knowledgeable enough to understand the entire meaning? I can’t. No one can. No one should. And yet we do, anyways, regardless.
A Bird’s Eye View
Monta Vista High School is like a nest full of baby birds who don’t know how to fly yet. Thankfully, we have the complete package, with a mother bird to watch us and help us spread our wings.
As a guidance counselor of Monta Vista High School, Sarah Freeman knows her students. “Oh yeah,” Ms. Freeman said. “Students come in to talk to me all the time. I have out-of-nowhere’s, periodic visits, and then I have my regulars.” Turns out real-life high school is more like movie-high school than we knew. Sixty-percent of Monta Vistians said that they would go to their guidance counselor to ask for help if they really needed it, and some of them really do. High school is a new world. There are new subjects, new classrooms, new territories, and new people to please. New and more people to get involved with as well. High school is a world where, in the Student Guidelines, under “Student Relationships,” it says, “Student relationships should not be embarrassing to other students or faculty. Students should limit public displays of affection to hand-holding or sitting next to one other,” as opposed to in middle school where it says, “No. Relationships.” Well. Basically. But since now high schoolers are given the freedom to roam into new territory that they’ve never set foot into before, there are bound to be issues, and people need people to talk to. “Oh, I get the issues. I rarely hear the good about the relationships,” Ms. Freeman said. “I hear about abuse mind control, emotional abuse, sexual stuff, pregnancy…and then just teenage stuff.” However even with all of these roadblocks, students continue to venture into territory that the world and our society always seems to think should be left to adults, because they are “older” and “wiser.” “I don’t think high schoolers are too young to be in relationships,” Ms. Freeman said. “No. They’re too young, they shouldn’t. No…hmm. Yes and no. Mostly no. Who knows? Maybe they do know what love is…I’ve had couples who’ve come to me and said that their significant other made them want to be a better person; it’s a connection I’ve seen probably twice that you don’t get to see with such young people…But most of the time it’s just lust for these students. Love is such a broad thing. It can be romantic, or I could even say I love my students, friends, colleagues.” The parents issue will never go away, as well as the age dispute. Some couples on campus are forced to hide their relationships anywhere outside of school simply because of the fear of their parents finding out. Although Ms. Freeman does not count this as any less of a relationship, it’s still a large roadblock that should be moved. “It could still be love for them, but you have to get them to ask themselves, ‘Why are you doing this?’ ‘What are you risking?’ ‘What’s the impact of lying to your parents?’ ‘Is it worth it?’” Some kids found it worth it to hide it from their parents, but Ms. Freeman admitted that she was not one of them. She admitted that she did not fall in love until she was “20-something.” “I was a late bloomer,” Ms. Freeman said. “…My first real ‘date’ like in the movies and everything…my first date was with the man I’m married to now! Ohmigod! I’m such a late bloomer!” But even with her late-blooming, she seems to have an idea of what she’s talking about. “Love is care. Love is respect. Love is wanting to be a better person for somebody, putting somebody before yourself. It’s an individual thing, it’s different for every relationship. You’ll find out what it is eventually.” But for right now, Ms. Freeman will watch us like a bird, and maybe all of us be ready to spread our wings into the unexplainable world of love some day.
Words Of Love I Hear You Say Love-lier words have never
^ ALL SMILES FROM HERE Freshman couple, Varun Jain and Mary Kim, have been together for one year and two months. “The relationship I am in is great,” Jain says with a smile. “We spend a lot of time together and we both feel the same way for one another.”
^ ALL SMALL THINGS HAVE BIG MEANINGS Carrie Jean and Jared Gold, another freshman couple, have been together for almost six months. “Once he gave me a really huge teddy bear as big as I am, and for 100 days, he gave me a piece of paper with 100 Post-It notes telling me all the reasons he loved me.”
“I love you” is the most overused, controversial, overrated phrase in the English language. We can literally take a spin around a high school for five minutes, and we’d hear the words a dozen times. “Oh, boyfriend, you’re so adorable, I love you!” “Ohmygosh thank you for all the advice, I love you!” “AHH! A cookie! Yum! I love you soooo much!” People throw around these words like they mean nothing; the affectionate phrase is now the equivalent of saying “Hi” or “Hello.” When surveyed, 97% at Monta Vista High School responded to the question, “What does the phrase ‘I love you’ and love mean to you?” with a flustered “Uh…can I get back to you? I’m not really sure…” Then they turn around and the three sacred words come constantly out of their mouths. But what about when people actually mean it? What about when they want to say it to their family, or to that special someone that they really do care for? Are the significant others going to disregard it because of all the overuse, controversy, and overrated-ness of the phrase? What’s going to happen when we really do want to use the words for what they mean, and not just as a casual throw-around phrase? Surprisingly enough, that’s not too hard to find. Of four couples from Monta Vista High School, all four of them are involved in serious relationships, and the words “I love you” have come up once or twice…or maybe all the time. “‘I love you’ is kind of like a promise to me,” freshman Carrie Jean* said. Jean has been in a relationship with freshman Jared Gold* for almost six months. “It’s not something you can just say to anyone whenever. If you love someone, there is no way that you could leave them the next day. Love doesn’t fade like that, so ‘I love you,’ is kind of like a promise from the heart, saying that ‘you’re a part of me now, and you’re something that I just can’t lose’.” Jean’s boyfriend, Gold, “gave himself to her” when he said the three sacred words to her as well. “[‘I love you’], it means, I’m all yours,” Gold said. Giving your self to someone else is a pretty big thing. They can control how you feel, and it’s a scary thing. But trusting them enough to say it, is true love…[with Carrie] I reached a point in time where only ‘I love you’ could possibly express my affection for [her].” Freshman Varun Jain has along the same lines of things to say about his year-long relationship with freshman Mary Kim and all the things he’s learned in this one steady relationship he has had. “The relationship I am in is great…I decided to say [‘I love you’] to [her] because I felt like it wasn’t just one of those simply small crush relationships where people get together just
because of a couple of reasons,” Jain said. “I got way more attached to her and started having a lot more feelings for her…we formed like a special bond with each other.” These feelings of everlasting promises, unconditional love, unexplainable affection, emotional attachment, and completeness with the other person are feelings that not everyone always knows, or will ever even be able to know. Junior Aileen Le took her time falling in love with boyfriend Julian Laguisma. “This is sorta funny. He [Laguisma] said ‘I love you’ a lot earlier than I did...like a month and I never said it back, I just said, ‘Me too!’ because I wasn’t at that point yet, like I won’t say something that important unless I really, really mean it and I’m stubborn. And that month was sorta awkward.” It doesn’t take long to realize though, being in love. Le said that the month gave her time to think and process all these intense feelings into her and understand all of them before she finally stopped saying, “Me too!” and moved onto something else to say. “Finally one day I said ‘I love you’ back, because I was at that point in my relationship where I realized, “Hey, this guy really is super great and really cares about me and I care a lot more about him than I would like to admit.’ Maybe it’s unhealthy; it’s just so Merriam-Webster
warm attachment,
Dictionary:
enthusiasm, or devotion 3 a: the
Main Entry: 1love
object of attachment, devotion,
Pronunciation: \
or admiration b(1): a beloved
lev\ Function: noun
person : darling —often used as a
Definition:
term of endearment 4 a: unselfish
1 a (1): strong affection for
loyal and benevolent concern for the
another out of kinship or personal
good of another
ties (2): affection & tenderness by lovers (3): affection based
— at love : holding one’s opponent scoreless in tennis
on admiration or common interests b: assurance of love
— in love : inspired by affection
big and kinda hit me in the face,” Le says. “And it just meant a lot because he knew it was real – even though he still teases me about it.” Hearing all these things makes it almost like a want to be able to fall in love and tell somebody that you love them. However, something that all these couples have learned, despite their staggering ages, is that love comes with experience and time, and it doesn’t mean as much if there’s no thought put into it; the definition of a relationship isn’t just two people together. “It doesn’t really have to do with the title,” Jean said. “It’s more like feeling that connection with someone, that you just want to know that they’re yours. You don’t need a label for that, as long as you know it in your heart. It means trusting them with all you have, even though logic tells you that at any moment you could lose it all.” Senior Anita Crumlin, despite her great age difference with freshman Jean, understands love in the same way. “[Bobby, my boyfriend, and I have] grown as lovers mentally, not physically – which I think is the strongest type of love. When someone who is thousands of miles away can still make you blush and get that giggly feeling by just talking to you on the phone and telling you how much he loves you – that’s true love. For couples who say [‘I love you’] just to say it, I have no respect for
you.”
them because they diminish the meaning of I love
To be so young and to feel so in love may seem ridiculous to adults. They would say, “Back in the day, we didn’t even know what love was. We were never interested in relationships and all that! It was all about work and making a living! That’s what’s important in your life.” To see two teenagers like Jean and Gold living their lives as a couple, and hearing everything they say about love, might frighten adults. They might even look down on teenagers like Jean and Gold, thinking that they don’t understand it enough to try to preach it. So what about the parents ordeal? Does it interfere with being able to feel love, and to say ‘I love you,’ and overall, the legitimacy of the relationship? After all, love is supposed to be unconditional and undiscriminating. When the students have to hide their love for one another at certain times where the circumstances aren’t as favorable and easy, some would think that the authenticity of the relationship goes down. “It may be kind of like a double life if your parents don’t know as you are forced to shield your feelings for the other person while you both are around parents or people who talk to your parents,” junior Julian Laguisma said. “[However,] I think parents knowing or not about your relationship does not and should not affect the legitimacy of a relationship.” Easy for him to say; his parents know about his relationship, just like Jain. “Of course my parents know [about my relationship]. They love her too!” Jain said. Jean and Gold, however, have kept their relationship strong for the past six months, but on the “down-low.” “I really wish I could tell my parents openly about my relationship,” Jean said, “but I’m not sure if they’d understand. I think my relationship is still special and meaningful with or without parental consent, but I really do wish that my parents knew because I want to tell them about my love life, and have that special bond with them.” Gold reciprocates this feeling, saying that the real important thing is only how the two people in the relationship feel about each other, and not anyone else. “For me, it doesn’t really matter,” Gold said. My parents are hardly involved into my life other than that they feed me and drive me everywhere. Having a legit relationship can be different for everyone, but I don’t mind long as I’m with her.” At the end of the day, this is what it all comes down to for four of the many couples that call Monta Vista their home, where they can be with each other all they want, with no boundaries and no parents to spy on them from around the corner. Sometimes it may seem like they’re hiding or “living a double life,” but at the end of the day, this is what it comes down to: each other. And if a double life is what it takes to be together, this is their decision. The students shouldn’t be discriminated against and questioned for their actions because of their young age. “There are a lot of kinds of love, the way you love your friends, your family, and then the type of love for your boyfriend or girlfriend,” Jean said. As we can all tell, these kids already know a thing or two about love that some adults will never know.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary: Main Entry: 1love Pronunciation: \ˈləv\ Function: noun Definition:
indefinable
.
been said...
< SMILE BIG AND SMILE WIDE, SMILE LIKE YOU MEAN IT Juniors Aileen Le and Julian Laguisma have gone through it all. Pictured here at Winter Formal, you can tell the two had a blast from the smiles on their faces.
“To me love means that you can be open with a person and you should feel very comfortable with them. To me it also means that you are ready to do anything for them and that you will always be there for whoever if that person ever needs you.” -- freshman Varun Jain. “There are a lot of kinds of love, the way you love your friends, your family, and then the type of love for your boyfriend or girlfriend.” -- freshman Carrie Jean. “I guess there can be a love at first sight, but to know what it means take time. They’re probably overwhelmed by each other, and have nothing else to say.” -- freshman Jared Gold. “[Love] means wanting to be with a person under any circumstances because they mean the world to you.” -- junior Aileen Le. “Saying ‘I love you’ soon doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s not really true, but you should make sure that you have no doubts at all that you mean the words when you say it.” -- junior Julian Laguisma. “Being in love is the greatest feeling on the Earth. When you know that u can show up to hang out with your man in sweats with no makeup on and haven’t shaved for weeks and he still thinks you’re the most beautiful person in the world -- that’s true love.” -- senior Anita Crumlin.
PROMISE RING > Senior Anita Crumlin and boyfriend NFL-training Bobby Guillory know how to keep their longdistance relationship strong. Crumlin even has a promise ring for her 17th birthday from her boyfriend to show their love.