“Happy anniversary of me licking your face.”
The hubs really knows how to set the mood. The other night, as we were turning in for the eve, he reminded me that the 8th had been the date of our very first kiss. Or as I refer to it, the very first time he licked my face.
I love my husband with more of my heart than I knew I could lend out, but our first kiss, well, it was a fail. I suppose not a total fail. We are still together many moons later. Thirteen years worth of moons, in fact. But it was not the stuff that movie kisses are built from. Because truly, when he kissed me, I responded, “Did you just lick my face?” followed by my inquiry of, “How drunk are you?”. Admittedly, I’d kissed my fair share of frogs before meeting my prince, and I knew immediately, this kiss was not, in any way, fireworks. Maybe it was more like Black Cats or Snaps because it definitely surprised me. And definitely caught me off-guard. Partially because I didn’t even know he was going to kiss me. He sort of side-attacked my face. And so I was ill-prepared to reciprocate. And partially, because all of this took place in the back seat of our very responsible designated driver’s car, as Adam’s best friend sat shotgun, taking in the events. Regardless, he went for it. I had to give him points for that. The guy had gumption. And I like gumption.
At our wedding, his friend even admitted that he was pretty sure that Adam and I would never hang out again after that drive home. But for some reason, maybe it was that the face licking was at least a funny story… maybe it was that I was wildly attracted to him… maybe it was that the forces of the universe were pushing us toward each other… whatever the reason… we did. I gave him my digits {because, of course, Facebook had not yet hit the scene. Nor twitter. Nor IG. And I most def didn’t have a MySpace}. And he called. Because he’s awesome like that.
We were just babies, for all intents and purposes. He was 21. I was 19. I was most definitely not looking for love. I was most definitely not planning on meeting my husband in college. I was most definitely not thinking that my first kiss with my future husband would be in the back of a sorority sister’s car. With his best friend riding shot gun. And him pretty darn close to sloshed. And me feeling like a dog had just befriended me. No, my friends, this was not what Disney had taught me to shoot for.
But I guess it turned out okay, eh? Because that next weekend, on December 14th, he took me out on a proper date. Where he opened my doors. The restaurant had cloth napkins {which was a far cry from the guy before him who’d offered to take me to Taco Bell sometime}. We stayed up all night talking and working on that face licking {oh the days when you could stay up all night talking and face licking}. And then, by some stroke of crazy, during Christmas break, I told my mom I’d met the one. By New Year’s I was head over heels in love. A goner. Totally that girl. Just ask my roomies who saw me about 3 times that next semester.
To this day, the Mr. swears, that what I called face licking has been mislabeled. Potato, potahto, I suppose. Either way, this past Sunday night, we celebrated, just as we do every year. Not just the licking of the face. But the proper first date. The boys picked out some flowers and post-bedtime for them, we dined in. And toasted to still liking each other. And making it through three first years of parenthood. And I thought about how I hadn’t one single inkling then, that our life would be like this now. But love happened. And we’ve just been going with it.
Love is weird like that. They say it happens when you least expect it. Or when you stop looking for it. And I suppose, in our case, I’d agree. But I might add that I think it smacks you right in the face. Literally. And I suppose, in our case, I’m pretty glad it did.
Cheers to face licking and another date-aversary spent holding each other’s hands, snugglin’ up next to one another, and celebrating the small moments that make life life for us.
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