Some people think of Teen Love and smile. It's not real love, they say. Puppy Love, they call it. Those people, I think, have very short memories, and no longer recall the realities of their first love experiences. While few expect teen love to last a lifetime, that hardly makes it less real. Half or more of all adult love doesn't last a lifetime either.

Teen love is very real. And powerful. Perhaps at no other time in our lives are the joys and pains felt as strongly, or experienced more deeply. Who among us, after all, can ever forget our first love?