Three Kisses

I have to preface the next few blogs.

I'm pretty average, I think, in the amount of time I spend thinking about my romantic life (average, at least among my people, the Silly Women with Idle Time, as you would suspect by the percentage of blogs written by this over represented group, we are legion.). And as I look back there have been a few defining moments in how I have learned to lust and love, want and be wanted, and they have almost all come with a kiss that I still keep in the pocket of my memory. So in the spirit of pointless disclosure I've decided to share. I've been a girl, I hope by now I'm a woman, and I've gotten by with a little help from my (boy)friends.

Kiss #1/2

I was in middle school, can I save all other discription? Yes, I think that's enough.

His name was Jeremy, he had blue eyes and a smile and the gate and frame of a twelve year old boy who'd grown up in a trailer park. A saggy black shirt hanging from wirey arms and hands that he always had in his pockets. The mother in me now wants to fix him a sandwich. He smoked behind the school at lunchtime and drank with his friends, which was still pretty shocking for me at the time, but in my memory he was a sweet, funny boy and I liked him.

We were in eighth grade and by then most of my friends had already been on the wrong end of a spinning bottle and I was beginning to feel exposed, the straggling sheep. Jeremy and I had already made the solemn commitment of going "out" but after a few weeks of passing notes and talking through our friends Jeremy was ready to cut the crap and take it to the next level.

Maybe it was because I was still just a little kid, and that would become clear to both of us once I somehow managed to screw up, maybe I was protecting myself from the heaping ridicule awaiting me once he told everyone I was a terrible kisser ( a junior high student does have to assume ridicule is waiting in the wings somewhere because, usually, it is.), maybe I was reluctant to cross that threshold into teenage romance, whatever it was, I was terrified, he on the other hand, was as urgent as a twelve year old nogoodnick can be and it was beginning to wear me down. After an eternity, or, two weeks, it's hard to tell time in preteen, I finally relented and met him behind the middle school to give him my first kiss.

We held eachother awkwardly around the waist but tried our best to act really cool about it. He smiled at me and I tried to stop vibrating with terror. We both leaned in and closed our eyes. But before our faces touched, I peeked.

His mouth was open. His tongue already out.

I may have screamed, but I know I ran.

It took me four more years before I attempted kissing again, seven before I would close my eyes.

#1

I was kind of a late bloomer. I didn't get boobs until I was 16 and then boy did I ever get 'em! I think I might have actually heard a BANG! (or was it a BOING?) when puberty finally hit. My kissing life started pretty much the same way, lots of waiting around and it still managed to be a surprise.

Four years after my failed attempt, I was going out with another boy, although this was different because we did actually go out to various places together, so in that sense, I had made some steps forward, but apparently not enough because Jake was beginning to complain about getting shut down every night. Now I'm only stating fact when I say that I was the most outrageously shameless flirt in exsistence, but I was also all talk and no action, since now the suspense in my own mind had mounted so much that it was almost impossible to not be paralyzed with fear at the thought of touching lips with another human being. Poor Jake, it was a deadly combo for a sixteen year old boy to handle.

One night I was piled in a van with about fifteen other kids, dropping Jake off at his home first ( he had really strict parents and a rediculously early curfew). I walked him to his door and then returned to a car full of kids who were already in the know about my secret shame and anticipating news that my virgin lips were no longer virgins. We were all dissapointed in me, again. The car was still a can of sardines so I was sitting on my friend Christian's lap when a flash of genius struck. Christian and I were safely entrenched in friend zone, on both sides, and I felt confident that he was one of those rare friends you find as a teenager who wouldn't throw you under a bus and I loved him dearly. So, feeling like the weight could actually be off I dove in, to his face. I was a little surprised, he was a little surprised, the car was a little surprised, and afterwards we both laughed. But that's how it happened. Like almost everything in life should happen, as far as I'm concerned, in front of an audience with a really good friend.

It was the best first kiss ever.