First Kiss

Below is a small excerpt from my memoirs (not published - yet). The boy's name has been changed to protect his identity because I feel like this story is equally embarassing for the both of us. To this day he is still my Facebook friend and we occasionally comment about our children and reminisce about the good ol' days of the 1990's.

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In the 7^th grade I had a huge crush on a boy named Brandon who went to church youth group with me.  He was a "bad boy" and I was drawn to the rebellious edge he had going on. He had spent weeks leading me on, talking to me on the phone, telling me I was pretty, and I was full of all the pre-teen hope that he would ask me to be his girlfriend.  One spring night at youth group, I pulled him outside and asked if I could tell him my birthday wish.  I confessed that the only thing I wanted for my 13th birthday was for him to kiss me.  I had never been kissed and I wanted him to be the one. Somewhere in my adolescent brain, I believed that 13 years old was the time I should start my kissing journey because that's simply what teenagers did at that age according to Party of Five and 90210.  Even D.J. Tanner was kissed at her 13th birthday party.

“Well, I have like potato chip stuff in my mouth, so I dunno.”  This was his thoughtful 13 year old reply to my kissing request.  

“Not right now.  Just soon, sometime.  My birthday is next week and I want to be kissed.”  He smiled and said okay and I went home that night and wrote everywhere in my journal “I love Brandon” and how excited I was that he was going to kiss me. 

Now, it's important to note here that I practiced tongue kissing.  A lot.  

I usually practiced on my hand in bed at night when I was dreaming for some amazing boy to fall for me like Steve from Full House.  I gave up practicing on my pillow because it just got wet and that was absolutely disgusting.  The bathroom mirror was my favorite place because then I could practice as if another person was getting close to my face. Essentially I was kissing my own reflection and I've never brought this up in therapy about what that could possibly mean but I'm wondering now if it's worth delving into. *face palm*

Mirror kissing was working out well until my mom noticed a giant open mouth print on the mirror and asked me what the hell I was doing.  I tried to pin it on my brother at first, but she quickly realized he wouldn’t have been able to reach that spot on the mirror.  Once she figured out I was attempting to practice french kissing, she laughed (and boy, did she laugh) and told me to at least clean the mirror after I was done.  Of course I never did that again because how embarrassing for your mother to comment on your giant open mouth print on the bathroom mirror.  My kissing practice after that was restricted exclusively to the outside of my hand and sometimes a wall where no mouth print could be detected. Bless my heart.

Exactly one week later was the night of my big first kiss. My birthday was in three days and the youth pastor’s wife had made cupcakes for me.  I was styled to perfection in my tapered hunter green jeans, a white button down blouse and these cute floral tennis shoes I got at the Payless.  My mother had started allowing me to wear lip gloss AND mascara when I started school that year, so I was all the 13-year version of hot I could be.  

With butterflies in my stomach, I attempted to be nonchalant all night, borderline ignoring him. But then, it finally happened.  A group of us had been outside and everyone was starting to head in. He was hanging back waiting for me and I knew that this was finally my time.  I was about to know what being kissed actually felt like.  

He grabbed me by the waist and pulled me close to him. For some reason I was looking down which was probably because I was 13 years old and was slightly terrified of losing my kissing virginity.  He put his hand on my chin and brought my face up to his and we kissed, just like I had wished for him to.  It was all kinds of wonderful, except for the fact that he did this really weird thing with his tongue and it didn’t feel anything like I thought it would or how I had practiced it on my hand every night. He moved his tongue around in this rapid, quick motion and it was weird. I only wished that it had felt slower and lasted much, much longer like in Little Women when Laurie kissed Jo.  Before I knew it, the kiss was over and sadly, so was his interest in me.  Perhaps I was an awful kisser because Brandon didn’t acknowledge me much after that until he was a senior in high school. By then, I completely ignored his interests in me as I was now 16 and had my eyes set on the youth group's golden boy Derek, who was crushed on by EVERY other girl at church.

Somewhere in a box in my garage is a cassette tape of my 13 year old self reading all the letters I wrote to Brandon about how much I loved him and wished he was mine.  I wrote dozens of letters that I never gave him which are nothing short of mortifying to read today. The tape is also accompanied by several mementos I collected during my Brandon obsessed era: a soda tab, a silly picture of him, a gum wrapper from a piece he gave me and a conversation heart from 1994 that reads "KISS ME." It was probably for the best that he lost interest in me and moved on because I was the boy-craziest crazy that ever crazied.  

As my life would turn out, I wouldn't kiss another guy until I was 18 and in college.  And that kiss, was life-changing.

Does this thing still fit?

Many, many seasons and stories have come and gone since I last visited this space.  I almost feel like I don't belong here, as the woman who wrote here so regularly before isn't the same woman writing today. I'm still figuring out exactly where I belong on the interwebs and I suppose this blog is like a pair of old jeans I havent' worn in a while.  I'm trying "Seasons and Stories" back on to see if it still fits. Will I need to make some adjusments or go shopping for something brand new altogether?  If this blog is anything like my ever changing waistline, I'll probably be going shopping for something new soon.

Looking back at old posts, I remember my old life and nothing is the same accept for my struggles with anxiety, weight and having to wake up early in the morning.  I used to have so many friends and write about sunshine on a regular basis and take pictures of table settings for whatever I was hosting. After recently moving into a new house, I threw away placemats and napkin rings because they seemed silly as my current life has no need for such things.  In the past few years, I've also gotten over my need to impress people or want them to like me, and my napkin rings were a reminder of the old me that wanted to be accepted.

My boys are older and bigger.  Praise the Lord we survived the little years! Jacob grew out of his need to scream about everything and only does that on special occasions now.  His fashion sense and personal style is ever-evolving as he's very into having longer hair, leather bracelets and plaid flannel shirts to wear over EVERYTHING.  Tommy is an inch taller than me now and my once joy-filled boy is now a mess of hilarious joke-telling, complicated feelings and crazy hormones as he is about to head into teenager land in a few months. He recently earned third chair in All Region band for middle school as a SEVENTH grader and I am still so stinking proud, you would have thought I was the trombone player.

I got divorced.  It was very awful and sad.

I married (after I swore off marriage) a man named Travis who is the cheese to my macaroni.  He's a big bearded man who curses like a sailor and has a heart of gold. We haven't stopped going on adventures, we both love the beach and recently we've become passionate about going to bed at 9:30 every night.  He likes to talk.  I like to talk.  He's funny.  I'm hilarious. He's a romantic and I like to swoon.  We're both very into sex. It's working out pretty well so far.

I have two more bonus kids with my husband now and entering into the role of step-mom has been overwhelming.  Only recently have I felt like I'm finding a groove of step-momming. One of my bonus kids is a bonus DAUGHTER, so clothes shopping for kids has become infinitely more exciting.  Except she's getting to the age where she doesn't like anything I pick out and she is only 10.  Lawd help.

I've become a dog person and have my very own dog named Chester - and if you would have told the woman who wrote here six and eight years ago that she would have Pit-Lab mix that she slept with every night and fork-fed salmon to, I would have laughed in your adorable face. He is the best dog in the history of dogs and I love him like he's my child.

Most of my friendships were a casualty of the divorce including those that I thought would be in my life forever. I have no "best friend" other than my husband Travis.  I miss female friendship and it's also weird because I am not lonely - not one bit. 

I stopped doing so many of the things that I loved because my heart was utterly wrecked and everything I thought I knew about faith, God, family, and friendships flew out the window after the divorce.  I'm back at the beginning of something new which makes me tired if I'm being honest. Picking myself up after going through all that I did has been the hardest I've had to work for anything in my life. But, here I am doing it. 

It's 2022 and I turn 41 in March. I have zero things figured out, and my ducks have long wandered off, but I'm grateful to be living and breathing and present here.

Some things are better.  Some things are harder. Some things are just entirely different. And it's time to write about all of it.