What is it about love and the idea of it that is so consuming to us? Why do we crave the kiss?
Is it the feeling of being wanted that we become addicted to; the feeling of needing that security that you're not alone in the world and someone, anyone, cares about you?
Or is it the steadiness of it? The familiar hypnotizing pattern of motion. The movement between two people that never fails to make you feel whole in the ying- yang sense of the term. Is it the way that your dry bottom lip hits the enslaving moistness between the two of his? Why does it feel so safe?
Ever since prudish little me picked up her first Sarah Dessen book, the woman who inspired me to be a writer, I always wanted to feel whole. In everyone of her stories, there is the broken distraught girl who either feels alone because someone has died or her parents have been divorced. Then enters the mysterious tall, dark, & handsome. He plays her a song on his guitar and gives her parts of what she's lost and makes here feel complete again. The end, they live happily ever after.
Well what if Fabio never entered her life? What if she didn't meet her Romeo or never received her letter to Hogwarts? Then what? Does she just stay miserable and alone her entire life because she doesn't have a man?
I thought I had to be broken before I could be fixed. Usually when something brakes you fix it, correct? You take out your tool box of bandaids and screwdrivers and you put it back together.
I never knew until now, that things that are perfectly fine can be fixed as well. I never knew that I could be fine, and just improve myself from where I was. Learn to be better as I became better.
All I wanted was love, all I craved was a kiss. I was so empty without it because I thought if you're not being kissed, it means no one wanted to kiss you. Not being wanted, as I'm sure we all know, hurts. And a kiss to a young girl, well, it seems like the most important thing in the world... So, in a sense, I am still a young girl.
It became worse as I started to hit those pre- high school teenage years. I watched all of my friends get boyfriends, have their first date, their first kiss. I was so happy for them, but it was hard being that redheaded girl the boys didn't like.
When I hit high school, things didn't change much. I still felt lonely, still wasn't the one guys were asking out. Like I said, I was that redhead girl, not the blonde, who liked alternative music, not Sean Kingston, and preferred poetry, not picking out my MySpace background.
So when I was asked out on my first date, by a senior boy, I thought I was finally having my Dessen moment. Finally thought I was going to get my happily ever after. It was my turn now, and I was going to let nothing get in the way of it.
Well, it was perfect. In every single way. He held my hand, could have great conversation with my parents. I'm pretty sure he was even hotter than any other guy I'd ever hoped would be interested in me. Plus, the fact that he was a senior and I was a freshman earned me major brownie points with my friends which helped make up for all the lost time I had missed out on. Things were finally falling into place.
I didn't want to notice the red flags because I thought they didn't matter in the grand scheme of things. They were minimal details that didn't fit into the storyline of my fairy tale.
Well, when you ignore things they catch up to you. And not pleasantly either.
I should have known it wasn't a good thing he didn't want me to hang out with my friends anymore, or that I was only allowed to wear certain things out of the house so 'other boys wouldn't flirt with me.'
I should have known that when he grabbed my arm or kicked me under the table when he didn't like what I was doing, that it wasn't right. And me ignoring it allowed it to escalate.
I just wanted to pretend it all wasn't happening, I wanted my romance novel love story, I wanted the kiss.
Remember the girl from the novel? The one who maybe had a drug addict mother, or a best friend who died in a car crash... The broken one. Well I'm going to write her a new story. One where ya, she had boyfriends, she had kisses... but the climax won't be in bed this time. It will be when she earns her law degree, or has her first art exhibit. When she backpacks through Europe and experiences the Trevi Fountain for the first time, not the Italian boy who works at the restaurant next to it.
Love stories are wonderful, and love it what drives a lot of people to do a lot of amazing things. But we have to learn to love ourselves before we can love anyone else.
Maybe if I write about the girl who fixed herself; well then maybe I can save someone from being like me, someone who now isn't just broken but can never truly be mended.
My cuts have healed and my bruises are gone. But the scars, mental and physical, will always be there.
A reminder of the danger, of kissing boys.
Seventeen magazine doesn't always have all the answers.
