Little People Fall in Love Too

Isabel came to visit me again today. "I don’t know if I should even tell you this," she said.

"You know you can tell me anything, Isabel," I replied, barely looking up from my work.

She indicated that she was very sad these days and then proceeded to tell me why. "I know you’re going to say that I’m too young," she began, "but I found out last week that my best friend "John" doesn’t like me anymore." And henceforth began the tale of woe. Evidently, 8 year-old John has moved on to other love conquests since he and Isabel no longer go to the same school. "He told me he likes another girl with dark hair," she ended miserably.

I wanted to laugh hysterically, but a love founded in preschool should be taken seriously, so I listened gravely. I tried to come up with a few words of comfort, but there was no comfort to be had for Isabel. "Kris," she said emphatically, pulling up her chair closer to my desk, "You don’t understand!!! I read in a magazine that it’s mostly people in their twenties who fall in love, but I have discovered that little people fall in love too!" She then told me all about that article she had read in some magazine somewhere and all about meeting John in preschool and all about "the new girl–" that horrid little dark-haired girl who never even knew John in preschool!

She told me how she was with him and his family at a restaurant when she found this terrible news out, and she just kept kicking her foot against the wall. So she wound up with a sore foot, and she was just miserable about it all for three days. She spent quite a bit of time on the floor of her dark closet thinking about it all and another length of time under her brother’s bed (that used to have trash under it but is cleaned out now).

"But I got over it two days ago," she finally finished. "So I’ll be ok. I wasn’t that into that mushy stuff anyway."