One Last Kiss

It's slightly depressing to realize that your three-year old nephew is getting more action than you are. Well, maybe not for you, but just a bit for me. Apparently, little Jack (who's never really been little) is quite the ladies' man! I mean, it's only natural that young girls would be drawn to this cute lightning bolt of energy, but jeepers! He's already gotten his first kiss?!?!? He beat me by a good fifteen years to that particular milestone. Although that wasn't for a lack of trying on my part. I distinctly remember trying to pin Brandon Webb to the trampoline when I was four, but oh, darn . . . he wriggled out of my grasp. (i think if mom ever knew i tried that, she never would have let me out on the trampoline with the neighbor kids ever again.) I wonder if Tom Powers ever would have let me kiss him any of the times we played together in kindergarten. Or Taylor Johnatakis in third grade, for that matter (probably the closest i ever came to having one of those elementary school "boyfriends"). But alas, I was already scared off because of my previously rejected attempt. Oh, the times that try little girls' souls.

But really, when do kids reach that age when you shouldn't kiss without "feelings"? There's some implicit age that I just can't pin down when you would most definitely stop being so uninhibited because you know that someone is going to read into it (that someone most likely being the girl in the "relationship"). But before they reach that awful age, they'll kiss, say they've got a boyfriend (or girlfriend), promise to marry someone and promptly forget about it over a popsicle, and we adults think it's cute, innocent, and pretty dang funny in some cases.

Personally, even though I was frustrated at the time that I had to "wait" until I was 17 to be kissed, I'm glad that it was the case, because it was that blessed kind of situation where the boy I liked also liked me. (yeah, that's actually happened to me before!) I find that far preferable to any alternative. But goodness, sometimes I wish I were as assertive as Jack's "girl next door". Just need to find me a man, I guess. Then we'll see who has the last laugh! (but it won't be me because i'll be kissing . . . someone . . . i hope!)

-Me

"To me, there is no greater act of courage than being the one who kisses first." -Janeane Garofalo