I think “forty” must be the bridge where you look back on your life and reflect on your triumphs and regrets while at the same time looking forward, daring to dream the unimaginable.
As I saddle this bridge, I find myself lost in a sea of hope, joy, sadness, and courage.
My life.
I own it.
All of it is not what I, myself, would have chosen, but it is mine none the less and the fragments that make me whole.
This morning, in a rare moment of solitude, I found myself searching for the most memorable moment in my life that transformed me.
The moment that, I suppose, made me whole.
Without a doubt, that moment for me was this–A single kiss.
I arrived at his house, “Guppie”, his dog, greets me with a wagging tail, too lazy to peel himself off the sidewalk to actually say, “Hello”.
I enter through the sliding glass door.
The house is quiet.
I walk to his room and he’s still sleeping.
Quietly, I take the seat next to his bed and watch him.
His chest rises and falls to his breathing.
His neck is framed by his curls.
The fullness of his bottom lip causes me to bite my own.
He is breathtaking.
I am content to just sit and wait.
He is my foundation, my rock, my shield.
He is my greatest weakness.
He is my greatest strength.
Ten, maybe fifteen minutes pass and an arm reaches above his head and stretches.
The other follows until both are reaching for the end of the world.
“Good Morning,” I say.
He grumbles something having to do with the morning, stretches, yawns and we start our day.
It plays over and over in my head.
There is a risk and possible rejection, but I decide, after rehearsing it in my head, to go for it.
Quietly I ask, “Can I kiss you?”
I swallow hard.
There is silence and I can feel my face turning red.
Then, he takes my hand and pulls me down to him.
I can feel his warm breath.
Our lips meet and fire chases the blood from my body.
His lips are warm and soft and his tongue is moist as it enters my mouth.
Everything around me erases.
I am lost in this moment.
The sky rips open!
Time takes a pause as the future stands by, behind closed doors.
The shadows of yesterday lay resting somewhere.
In this moment, daylight ends as my breath takes flight.
My heart is filled with treasured secrets and unwritten promises.
As our lips part, I look up, into his eyes.
I’m certain they are the color palette for The Creator’s ocean and midnight sky and that there is no way Maybelline could fit that many lashes in my pink mascara tube.
That kiss made me realize that I was capable of loving someone else.
It awakened hope in me and created a symphony of dreams I still cling to nearly 25 years later.
That moment is my “happy” thought…it’s the place I have gone when I have been at death’s door.
It is the memory I revisit when I am sad or when I just need inspiration.
That kiss transformed me from a young girl who felt alone and lost to a young woman who saw someone others considered, perhaps broken, as someone who completed her–as someone who made me want to be more.
It was not my first kiss, nor was it my last.
It was just THE kiss, the one that transformed my life and filled my soul.
What is your most memorable transformation?