The Falling Part: My First Kiss

In the movie Princess Diaries, Anne Hathaway's young teenage character Mia had dreams and visions about what her first kiss would be like.  There was one key ingredient needed to realize her dream:  her foot would pop up behind her during the kiss.

As it does for many heroines in romantic comedies, the moment of Mia's awaited kiss came to pass.  Her dream guy even happened to be in her arms at that moment.  But did the essential foot action happen?  Not really.  Her flip flop-adorned foot did "pop," but it got caught in a net in the process, and everything went downhill after that.  Never fear...Mia did get a real "foot-poppin' kiss" during the happy conclusion of the movie.  Whew!

For all of the hopeless romantics watching (such as myself), there was a nice lesson to be learned here.  That is, if all of life's kisses were standing in line in chronological order, the best ones wouldn't necessarily get to be first.  It's okay to dream up the perfect kissing scene, but be prepared to wait awhile as the less-than-dreamy scenes sometimes take precedence. 

Although at age sixteen I hadn't spent too much time yet dreaming of my perfect kiss, I had imagined it would happen on a wonderful night to remember.  As it turned out, the events surrounding my first kiss were quite a bit more like tangled nets than popping feet. 

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Journal Entry, 8 September 1990:
     Last night was our first football game of the season.  We lost 14-12 against Reno.  It was a really good game, we were ahead 12-0 until the 4th quarter.  I sang the National Anthem for the game.  I did alright.
     There's this real cute guy at school--Evan Flinton.  He's in my U.S. History class and Chemistry, and plays on the football team.  I was hoping I would get to see him play at last night's game, but he didn't play because he hadn't had his physical yet.
     At the dance after the game, I got to dance with Evan, to the song "What it Takes" by Aerosmith (it's a slow song).  It was great--we talked, it wasn't one of those where you just sit there and try to think of what to say.  It was a fun dance.

10 September:
     I had quite an awesome conversation with Evan today in Chemistry.  At the end of class, Evan just said to me, "You surprised me at the dance."  I said "Why?"  He-"When you asked me to dance, I wasn't expecting it 'cause we never talked before."  (I was already loving the conversation and the look in his eyes.)  I said, "That's not my fault."  (Hint, Hint!)  He- "Are you saying it's my fault if we never talk?"  I- "Yeah." (Smile).  He-"I'm sorry, I'll start talking to you more."  I- "Okay." (Of course that was okay!!)  He- "I'm sorry if I seemed a little distant when we were dancing, I'm just like that with people I don't know."  I- "Oh that's all right."  (I was dying inside!) Then we talked about the dance and other stuff 'till the end of class.  : )

Over the next few weeks, Evan and I enjoyed flirting back and forth during and after our classes.  He was different than most of the guys I had liked in the past.  He was not musical, not a Mormon, and not blonde.  So what did I like most about him?  He was certainly handsome, with very dark hair, a strong square jaw, and his young football jock physique.  Oh, and let's not forget his alluring full lips...I mean, smile!  Though it wasn't until later that those features would make an impact on me (pun intended). 

Outside of Chemistry and History class, we had one other unusual but exciting method of communication.  I was the student secretary to his English teacher, Mrs. Barnes, and although I wasn't present during the hour when Evan had Mrs. Barnes, I had the privilege of grading the daily journal assignments from his class.  For each assignment I would mark with a red pen my acknowledgement of each student having turned it in, and rather than leave just a check mark on Evan's writings, I would leave a quick note saying hello.  Mrs. Barnes didn't mind, she was a pal.

Mrs. Barnes would assign a simple topic each day to get the kids' English brain cells and writing muscles warmed up, and I enjoyed reading Evan's creative writing each time.  Imagine my delight the day I discovered Mrs. Barnes had assigned the topic of "Red," and Evan and his best friend Joey had written their entire paragraphs about me!  "Red is the color of the hair of the girl I like..." he wrote.  How fortunate that as one of the perks to my secretary responsibilities, I had easy access to the photo copy machine down the hall, so I was able to copy their essays and keep them forever (I bet I could find them among my high school keepsakes if I searched long enough). 

One day, Evan was a little bolder, and he sent me a message on his daily essay asking me a very important question: "Do you want to go on a date?"  Believe it or not, that day his essay got snagged and graded by a different hour's secretary (I wonder what she thought when she came across his note!), but that didn't stop Evan from repeating the invitation verbally when he saw me next.

"So when are we going to go out to dinner?" he asked, on our way to Chemistry.

Happily surprised by his question, I smiled big and answered, "Soon!"

We made tentative plans for the following week, and on his next writing assignment he confirmed, "Red, Definitely next Saturday after the McQueen game!" According to Evan, this was now grounds for telling our friends that we were "dating."  That made me happy.

Little did I know, there was something else in store for me than dinner that night!  Something better than dinner?  Well, something unexpected, that's for sure.

Journal Entry, 4 October 1990:
     I feel so weird.  I guess I should be happy, but I'm not really.
     Evan kissed me tonight after the game, my first kiss.  It was nothing like I expected.  I thought it would be awesome, but it wasn't that great.  Then, I thought we were going out tonight, but we ended up going to the high school to decorate for next week's Homecoming festivities.  We didn't even decorate.  Then when he had to go, he went for another kiss, but I pulled away.  Then I ran into him again before I left, and I talked to him a little, and he asked for a kiss goodbye, and I did, then he got a hug.  It made me kind of upset that after I had refused that kiss goodbye, he still asked for one.

I had thought that my first kiss would be more dream-come-true like.  More fireworks in the sky, more everything around me standing still, more weak-in-the-knees like. 

Don't get me wrong.  My first kiss was a little dreamy.  I especially loved the setting.  As the kicker for the football team, Evan had just kicked a field goal or extra point, securing the win for our team!  All of the sweaty uniformed players were marching off of the field in victory, and there was "Evan's girl," in the right place at the right time...he found me standing, congratulating and beaming along with a crowd of other admiring fans just off of the field on his way to the locker room.  He stopped only long enough to grab me gently by the shoulders, and planted his warm full beautiful lips right on mine for a long one or two luxurious seconds.  --Wow!  Did that really just happen to me?-- Then he said "I'll see you in a few minutes," and flew away with the rest of the team.

I must admit, I couldn't have asked for a more exciting scene.  I'm very happy with how that part of the evening went down in my history.

If the evening had ended with the romantic dinner date I had been anticipating, and perhaps a little holding hands or just that warm hug in the end, it may have been perfect all together.  But the dreamy experience had ended there on the field.  Oh well.

Having your first kiss is kind of a lot to process, is it not?  Evan had no way of knowing that was my first kiss.  He actually never even found that out, because I never really had the chance to tell him. Sadly, my need for processing time was the main reason why I had not felt ready for the second kiss that same night.  And even more sadly, my lack of experience may have been what signaled to Evan that I was no longer the right girl for him.

Journal Entry, 8 October 1990:
     Evan and I are no longer seeing each other.  I'm very sad.  I didn't talk to him before school, but I got a note from him on his English journal page saying: "Red--I need to talk to you and it's not good."  I saw him before lunch and asked him to come talk to me.  JoAnn told me before that Joey said he wanted to break up.  So when I talked to Evan I asked, "You don't want to see me anymore?"  He told me he wanted to get to know me better and then maybe we could go out.  I wasn't too upset, but I thought he didn't really mean what he said about just needing to know me better.

A week later, after our next big win at the Homecoming game, I enjoyed one final big hug from Evan as I congratulated him on the awesome game he played.  Just as soon as I started thinking we stood a chance at getting back together, at the dance following the game, I received word from Pete that Evan had his arm around one of my good friends, Sarah.

I didn't know if I should be mad at her, or at him.  Nevermind the fact that Sarah was further along the kissing road than I was, which must have made Evan happy (or at least together, she and Evan got further along that road than I did anyway)... but because I liked both of them so much, I chose to keep my chin up and let them have their fun.

I suffered disappointment and jealousy for a few solid days, but soon accepted the unavoidable truth that my Evan days were through. In the end, I knew that by holding back I had chosen to do what was right for me, and I was only better for the experience.

The scene surrounding my first kiss may not have been like the climax of a movie, but I wasn't worried.  I believed the perfect kisses would come eventually.

I was right.