Live To List

Yesterday I wrote about how I still feel the twinges of desire to acquire things, but mostly I quash them.  I withstand my desire for the new and shiny things and the promise (lies!) of a perfect life.  I can be an anti consumer, or at the very less a low level consumer

However, one thing I seem to buy hook line and sinker from media is the ‘happy’ myth.  Or more precisely, the soap opera of constantly interesting story lines.

There is no soap opera in going to work every day, and sitting at a desk most of the time getting work done.

Well, there is no soap opera about engineers.  Think about that – doctors, nurses, CSI tech, lawyers, Australiam librarians, politicans – yes to all the above.  Engineers – not so much.  The Australian film “3 Dollars” he’s an engineer who loses his job.  Gloomy.

I seem to wish and want my life to have interest.  To have a good story, at any moment to tell.  That perfect tale to tell when someone asks ‘what’s been happening’ who I saw only a week ago.  Put another way, I seem to want a certain level of drama in my life.  Some complication, some struggle.  Those who know me well enough, are honest enough to tell me, my life IS like a soap opera.  Alas, I think (and hope) that’s perhaps not come across in my blog posts?

But it’s a myth, just like the right clothes will improve your self esteem or the right cupboard will solve your clutter problem.  Both those myths I know the truth about!  But the constant drama, the swings and roundabouts of life, I always want just the right sprinkling.  I do not like to be bored.

That being said, sometimes, I get to the end of the dramatic act, and I think ‘Woowa, why did I want into that scene? Why didn’t I just reject that story line?’

It only just dawned on me the other day when a friend said to me “Life isn’t like a TV show”.  He’s right.  I know advertising isn’t real life. But I need to learn that a scripted life is not real life.  For one, they never show them going to the toliet.  That always used to puzzle me as a child!

When I was a teenager, and hormonal, I wrote endlessly about love and all the involved permutations.  But I knew I was young and hormonal and who wants to read the same gaff every teen goes on about?  Now I’m in that perfect spot – neither youthful hormones, nor at the sunset of youth (relatively), nor pregnant lady hormones. I feel like I can write about the heady memories of first kisses without a bias 😉

There is nothing more intoxicating than the anticipation of your very very first kiss.  There’s nothing to compare it to.  From those more experienced at school, the most graphic example Sally gave was ‘it’s like licking a plate’.  I think the visual was captivating enough, irrespective of it’s relevance to the actual act.

When I FINALLY (or so it would seem) had my first kiss at 16, it was at a school dance.  I remember the sore hips from a night of swaying back and forth on the same spot.  I was delighted to be told that ‘it looked like the movies’ when Fran reminisced about my first kiss.  Cause if it looked right to an outsider, I mustn’t be doing anything too wrong, right?

Alas, this kiss was unexpected, a function of luck.  The best kisses are the ones you’ve imagined in every possible combination in your head.  Every moment, in freeze frame motion.  And that started LONG before I was actually first kissed.  I remember spending my first year in high school speculating ways I could ‘run into’ the neighbour up the street.  It couldn’t have been more frustrating to NEVER have him on my train home – how could us two commuters never find our paths met?  (Mostly cause he went to school for an hour less a day, and my school was twice as far away!)  Nonetheless, almost every day I spent 50c on a roll of lifesavers, so should I see him, I’d have something to offer.  A way to nonchalantly strike up conversation.

After my first kiss, but whilst still in high school, I developed a crush.  With it, I created this alternative reality, this happily ever after.  It all pivoted on that first kiss.  When the time finally came to steal a kiss, it was lack luster.  he smelt… like he’s clothes hadn’t dried properly.  There’s nothing I detest more than that musty smell.  It failed to live up to the hype in my head.  (Interestingly, I was told many years after this that I was ‘the one that got away’.  Since then, he’s happily married, so I think all’s well on that front!)

At university, it took about at least a year to get over the awkwardness that comes from eight years in a girls boarding school and into an environment of 95% guys.  I spent a long time expecting someone to rib me for talking to guys, that I might have an ulterior motive, that I was ‘in lurve’.  I also slowly got out of thinking every interaction needed to be working towards ‘a boyfriend’.  Let’s face it, in boarding school you had to maximise you chances, which were so few and far between.

Let it be known that I’ve had more crushes than hot dinners, so it will come as no surprise that this thrill of imagining the first kiss is a well worn path in my sub conscious. I remember developing a firm interest in a friend in one particular class.  I think it’s the only time that the reality far exceeded my imaginings!  All the mystery he’d developed seemed to continue despite our first kiss.  I can only assume I wasn’t as skillful (?) as that ship sailed.  Our romance dissolved and we continued to study together with no malice.  Well not much 😉

First kisses.  There’s so many unknowns.  It’s often the gateway to physical touch.  Will it be breathless and heady?  Will it fall flat to all the hype in your head?  Will it come when you least expect it and leave you floored?  To me, there’s so much mystery in a kiss.  A mystery in why humankind do this – and why we found this ritual so intoxicating.  As my little brother mistook it as a child ‘why are they biting each others’ lips?’.  Well, that’s a very good question… One I just can’t quite answer!