at 13 or 27.. it's still the same fear

I was watching a re-run of Private Practice last night during my "study" break. In the show Cooper (a pediatrician) is talking to this young 13/14 year old boy. The boy was brought in by the mom because she thought he was sick.. he said he wasn't sick, he was in love.

Cooper asks, "isn't that supposed to be great?" The boy responds, "Not if the person you love doesn't love you back." Coop reveals that he has a crush too, he's in love with a co-worker and hasn't told her. He's loved for her a very, very long time. So the two make a pact, the boy will tell his love how he feels and Coop will tell his. Turns out, the boy gets beat up because he's in love with his best friend, who is a guy. Coop chickens out, because Violet is still in love with her ex (who is married).

Violet spent the episode trying to find out if the new wife (Cammi) was married and eventually the two have a confrontation. Turns out Cammi was there to check Violet out. Violet tells her there's no competition, Cammi is young and beautiful. Cammi tells Violet she isn't so sure about that... which thus gives Violet hope (bad bad bad!! - that's a whole different blog there altogether).

So Coop chickens out and reassures Violet, "Of course he's still thinking about you, you're hard to forget..." (they pause and look at each other) "you know big fuzzy red hair, loud voice.." (laughter breaks the moment). That's as close as Coop gets to telling her how he feels.

No matter how old you are, that fear is still the same. I remember feeling that scared and anxious when I was young and it still feels the same when you're older. It's this feeling that makes you feel like you're standing in the middle of a tornado. You're safe if you stay in the middle, but if you dare to tell the person, it's like waiting to see if the tornado will dissipate and the sun will appear or hits you and pulls you into it.

You'd think it would feel different as you get older, I suppose if anything it should get more scary right? Unless you feel as though you have nothing to lose. But if you think about it, it's all relative to your experience. So as a child, that's all you know, this is LOVE, real love and it's extremely scary. You've never felt this "intense" before! Then as you get older, you realize more and more the complexity of such feelings.. so that fear is still the same, no matter how old you get.

So if you were in the middle of the tornado, do you think you'd stick to the middle or go for it?