It’s In His Kiss
My overactive imagination has been a source of constant irritation for just about as long as I can remember. Between my imagination and my predisposition towards reading romance and sci-fi novels, my views on reality have been slightly skewed to say the very least.
Every relationship that I have had has been in, both real and imagined, has been affected-for better or for worse by my dramatizations, of which my mind has seemingly inexhaustible resources. Reading romance novels can really screw a girl up you know, they just kind of build your hopes up to a level that can never be maintained by a real man, so you are inevitably disappointed, and, if you’re anything like me your life is irrevocably changed.
My first “relationship” was a whirlwind of passion; he wooed, courted, wined and dined (as best he could on an allowance of $10 a week), and gave me my very first kiss. It was absolutely magical. The stars seemed to align, the earth stopped spinning and I was absolutely certain that he was the love of my life and that we were meant to spend our lives together: I was 8. He was 11. I know, kind of pervy, but I was a quick one. Unfortunately, he was a real man, and not one from my fairy tale lands, and he quickly discovered that it was not quite très sophistiqué to associate with a girl, especially not a younger girl, and he deserted me to exert his burgeoning masculinity.
I was completely devastated. I had my mother take me to the Goodwill where I purchased, at the extravagant cost of $8 (an entire week’s allowance) a long black tea dress and veil. Although my mother wisely forbid me to wear the ensemble to school or out to play—she used the logic that I would trip over it and hurt myself—I found it satisfactory to put it on each evening after dinner, pulling my hair back and wandering around singing dirges of lost and unrequited love. I imagined myself as Miss Havisham, a bride, deserted on her wedding day and fashioned my demeanour as only an eight year old can, to reflect the “depths of despair” into which I imagined myself sinking day after day. When my siblings asked me what I was doing, I would solemnly respond, “waiting for my love to return.” I know, tragic…but I was sincerely convinced that he was it for me.
I didn’t kiss another soul until I was twelve, but ever since that very first kiss with Tony Grantham, I have been completely and utterly fascinated with kissing. Honestly I obsessed about that kiss so much that it took on a life of its own. I’m pretty sure that it wasn’t as great as I remember, and I’m positive that we did not make out i.e., there was no tongue involved, but I still felt like that was quite possibly the best kiss I’ve ever had.
During this period my parents divorced and myself and younger siblings were ignominiously shipped hither, thither, and yon to stay with relatives, friends, and in hotels for about two years. I had very few friends, and when I did they were quite short-term associations. As such, I retreated further and further into my imagination, simultaneously developing what I then referred to as a “carpe diem” approach to life, and now see as more of a, well, insane approach. Everything that I wanted to do I did, with much less reserve than I would normally display as I was sure, at least ninety percent of the time, that I wouldn’t be around long enough to face the consequences. As a result, I probably made out with about twenty-five people from eighth to twelfth grades (I know slut-puppy!). I’m actually astounded that I’ve made it this far without at least one painful and embarrassing bout of mononucleosis.
The point of this exercise in futility was simply to try to find someone who made me feel the way that I was certain that I would feel when I found “the one.” And at thirteen that’s a really big deal! I tried and tried to find a spark, any spark, but alas to no avail. I was waiting on the moon to turn blue, the stars to write our names, the earth to move, fireworks, AND the leg “thing” (you know, that thing they do in the movies).
Growing older meant that I abandoned a few of my naïve theories on the birds and the bees. I’ve found attraction in other areas; emotional security, physical attraction, friendship, and good sex, being just a few, but I always knew with the passing of each relationship, regardless of how promising it seemed, that he wasn’t “the one.” Of course this inner certainty stemmed from my subconscious reliance on the fact that I was still waiting on the kiss that would, as I put it in my journal at the all-knowing age of fourteen, start the rest of my life. I have fallen in love, twice, in the end only once do I even remotely think that there might have possibly been even the teeniest evidence to support my thinking that they could have been the one. At the end of each relationship after mildly chastising myself for once again second-guessing my infallible intuition, I move on still hoping, searching, and waiting, for “the one” to find me, as I have always been sure that he will.
And although now I do acknowledge that it probably helps to have something in common with the person along the lines of background, family values, politics and/or religion to say the least; and, of course it really doesn’t hurt to have a substantive friendship built on more than looks, sex, and/or convenience, I know that in my heart I still believe that there is an intrinsic truth in the words of the old song: “If you want to know if he loves you [so] it’s in his kiss.” That’s where it is.
Pocahantas is a 23 year old fiesty female with loads of common sense and yet an unstintingly healthy dose of cynicism when it comes to men and relationships. She’s currently single and living in the great metropolis of Atlanta, where half the men have lots of drama and the other half are gay. Tune in weekly for her reality check on single living in the great US of A.
