Flashback Friday - And Then He Kissed Me...

"The sound of a kiss is not so loud as that of a cannon, but its echo lasts a great deal longer." ~Oliver Wendell Holmes

Maybe I'll try something new with my blog this year by doing a weekly theme.  I love Throwback Thursday photos on Facebook, so I'm thinking of making Flashback Fridays on my blog to rehash some historical moments in the life of one KUMommy (most of them probably occurring prior to mommy-hood).

The other night I had this crazily realistic dream about being on a date.  I couldn't identify the guy.  I'm not sure the girl looked like me but I was in her head for sure.  But all of the feelings and nerves of a first date were definitely real and those I remembered vividly even as I awoke.  And though I'm fairly certain there was no kissing in my dream, it got me thinking about some of the first kisses in my life and the feelings they stir up in me even now as I think back on them.  

My First Kiss:  I didn't receive my first real kiss until I was 17 years old.  I was working my first job at a movie theater, and I had finally escaped the stigma of "band nerd/wallflower/drama geek/smart girl" that I fit into in my small high school.  I still was all of those things, of course, but I felt like I could be more than that in the big city at my job.  And, of course, there was a whole new group of boys whose stigmas from school didn't follow them either.  The crushes came and went as I worked there, but I had a particularly strong affinity for one young man who flirted with me all the time.  If my memory doesn't fail me he also had dimples.  Ah... gotta love dimples.  He was way more interested in one of my besties than he was in me, and I'm pretty certain he had no clue I liked him for a long time.  After one late evening of closing down the concession stand, we were both in the break room and I finally just told him how I felt... or maybe I just asked him if we could go talk somewhere.  I was so tired of him gushing about his crush on my friend when she didn't like him back especially when he and I flirted all the time.  So we went for a drive.

We ended up at a tiny park in a small neighborhood just down the street from the theater.  We sat on the park bench and I told him everything. How it sucked to watch him like someone else. How I had liked him for a long time... all those silly thoughts that happen in a teenage girl's head.  And that sweet boy, under the cloudy sky with the moon peaking through the clouds, turned my face towards his and kissed me.  It seriously felt like it came right out of a movie or a dream.  I don't remember much about driving home that night, but I know I couldn't stop smiling.  And as I woke up the next day (at 5:30 a.m. because I was too giddy to sleep) I ran down the stairs and told my mom that "I FINALLY GOT MY FIRST KISS!!!"  I proceeded to hum "And then he kissed me..." the entire next day at work.  Nothing much came of that first kiss.  I pseudo-dated that boy who seemed a little shady and all kinds of mysterious for MAYBE two weeks and then he promptly got fired from the theater and basically stopped talking to me.  But that first kiss will stay with me forever. 

Pink Roses

Seven years ago this evening, a handsome young man came to the doorway of the Daisy House with a single solitary pink rose for me. He had come to take me on a date-our very first-to go out to dinner and see the Shockers play basketball. I was so excited.

It had been only one short month that we'd known each other. We met on a retreat for young adults at the retreat center where I now work, oddly enough. I was on the retreat team and Andrew was going on the retreat with his sister. I remember thinking when he checked into the retreat that he definitely looked like "my type." You know... the tall, skinny, nerdy-but-cute type to which I had always been drawn. The next morning at breakfast, I was serving and he came through the line. I said, "You're Andrew, right?" He was shocked that I knew his name and asked me about it as I came to sit down for a meal near him later that day. I just said that I'd been working on remembering all the retreatants names... which was mostly true... kind of.

That was our first official conversation. The next few weeks would bring me many opportunities to flirt with this new man that I'd met. He was at our house for the Super Bowl party that year and I remember we sat next to each other the entire night. A few days after that a bunch of us went out for his sister's birthday and ended up back at the house afterwards. I was finishing crocheting my first scarf, and as I finished, Andrew decided he would wrap it around his head to model it. His wonderful sissy - Thanks Marianna - said "YOU SHOULD TAKE A PICTURE TOGETHER!" So Andrew scooched over next to me and we took our first photo. Did I mention he put his arm around me? I was all a flutter.

Then Mardis Gras rolled around and I thought I would be watching American Idol by myself as I waited for the other young adults to arrive for Rosary night. Then Andrew called me up and asked what I was doing. I said I was just going to watch TV and make brownies for Mardis Gras until everyone arrived, so nervously I suggested he come over and join me. I thought for sure it would be awkward since it was our first time alone together... but I don't even remember watching TV at all. We talked non-stop. And when it was time to make the brownies for the Mardis Gras celebration, I became even more smitten with this man when he pulled out his white apron and got ready to cook with me.

So when he arrived on my doorstep that chilly February evening for our first date... I had a hunch that something wonderful was beginning. And after that evening of talking and cheering for the Shocks and hanging out together, I came home, said night prayers with Andrew and hugged him goodbye. I walked into my room, opened my journal, and wrote "I think I just went on my first date with the man I'm going to marry."

Six years ago today, I awoke in my room in The Daisy House, and I was sad. It was the first Thanksgiving in my 25 years that I was not waking up in the same house as my family. I called Mom. Crying. "Mom... I miss all of you."

"Oh, Kristi..." She assured me. "We will see you tomorrow night. Besides, you'll have fun with Andrew's family." Perhaps she was right, perhaps she wasn't, But that didn't really matter to me. I wasn't just sad because I missed them. I was sad because it had just hit me that things were actually shifting in my life. And I was going to have to figure out a new "normal".

That morning marked the beginning of the mad juggling of families that now encompasses the majority of our holidays. I suppose most every young family goes through this (at least if they are blessed enough, as we are, to be on good terms with both sides of the family). And it seems to get a little tougher each year... As a new sibling gets married... Or another kid comes along.

I wonder at what point people stop trying to do everything with each family and just start developing their own family traditions? I assume this must happen at some point. I mean how else would kids learn about the tradition of waking up in your own house on Christmas morn and anxiously running down to the tree to see what surprises they would find?

Then again, I still don't think I could bear not seeing our families during the holidays. Sometimes it's a week before or a week after the actual day, but we still get together and break bread and do our best to have fun. It's all part and partial of giving thanks and sharing the love I guess.

At least this morning I didn't wake up in tears. Nope, 6 years after that first weepy Thanksgiving, I woke up, kissed the baby next to me, hollered (hushedly) at the other two to quiet it down, and began a baking frenzy to get us through the next 4 days of eating. No tears this year. Just a grateful smile on my face to have so many loved ones to visit and hug and be merry with.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Ten Things I'd Relive

Inspired by the trending hashtag on Twitter: #10thingsidrelive... I'm blogging.

1) May 6, 2006. - Our wedding day. Magical. Holy. Blessed. Dream-like. And SO STINKING FUN!

2) Senior Prom - I had the prettiest dress, a date that I was in love with, was the first couple to dance, and ended the night with a great breakfast with all of my high school friends. I remember sitting on the front porch with my mom the day after prom just crying and crying because I was so sad that High School was almost over.

3) William's Birthday - It's not everyday that you're granted a miracle. No placenta accreta! No hysterectomy! The chance to have more kids and a beautiful baby boy to boot!

4) February 28, 2005 - My first date wtih Andrew. The night that I knew for sure that I had met my husband.

5) 2nd Semester of Sophomore year at KU. Templin Hall shenanigans. First time rooming with Valerie. And silly (and exciting) little relationship with Mark. So ridiculously fun!

6) Thursday nights at Henry T's with all of my college besties.

7) Lake Geneva Honeymoon!

8) AHS awards night 1999 - probably the most accomplished I've felt in my life (next to Vince's natural birth at least). I sang my first solo "Walking after Midnight" at the choir concert and killed it... Then I got a ton of awards at the awards night ceremony. One night that it felt really great to be one of the smart kids in school.

9) Great Country Getaways 2003, 2005 and 2006. 03 was the first and it was hilariously fun! 05 melded college and HS friends and everyone thought Andrew was going to propose. 06 was the first Fall GCG, and the weather was magnificent.

10) The first time I took Andrew home to meet my parents. It was the weekend that it became very real to me that, though we had only been dating a month or so, this man really would be my husband some day. One specific memory was when I showed him the humble country Church that I wanted to get married in... And then we sat in the grass of the big hill next to my parents house and he told me we would get married there.


Man... That was fun!! And I want to read yours, so if you have a blog... Write them!