30 Day Writing Challenge: Day Three

My first love and my first kiss?

There were moments when I thought they were the same.  At the time of the kiss, I didn't even try to convince myself that I loved him.  I barely knew him.  I was the embarrassingly old age of 16, and he was a worldly 18.  I was star struck, and the things he liked about me were things that I didn't know yet how to like about myself.  The kiss lured me in like a siren's song, but I never really loved him.  I tried to love him; I tried more times than was fair, and in the end, when I tried to make him hate me so that I could walk away, I had to do the breaking.  The kiss was not that great in retrospect, but it was at night, in a car, with a boy who was older than me, and I was overwhelmed by the discovery that the world was so much bigger than I expected.

My first love took me by surprise.  I didn't want to love him.  I was too complicated.  There were other men I wanted to love me, but none of that was worth the effort.  I didn't know how to be that woman who would go out and make that happen.  But this one cleaned my car off in a blizzard.  He made me art work.  He shared music that made my heart want explode out of my body.  I could NOT.  I would NOT.  Love him.  I was the embarrassingly old age of 31, and he was...um...younger than that.  And I was too complicated.  I was just too.  I did my best to scare him so that he could walk away.  I would NOT love him.  And then I did.  The things he loved about me were things that I didn't know yet how to love about myself, and that faith lured me in like a siren's song.  Then he walked away because we both wanted different things.  But we didn't.  And then we did.  By that point, we knew of no other way to be than together.  We liked each other too much not to be friends, and as friends, we had to do the right thing by each other.  So we did.  And now he cleans my car off in the snow, puts air in my tires, and packs lunch for our son.  The things he loves about me are things I'm still learning to love about myself, but each day I am overwhelmed by the discovery that my heart is so much bigger than I ever expected.