Kisses

My first kiss was in a cinema. We'd both been eating Reese's peanut butter cups, which aren't exactly your classic date food. And it wasn't your typical date movie, either; as I recall, it was a horror film. Somewhere in the middle, he leaned towards me and we started kissing. It was ... nice. Not the earth-shattering experience I'd hoped for, but pleasant enough. Though at the same time, I kind of wanted it to stop so I could finish watching the film (I hate being interrupted in the middle of a film). I guess, even then, it was obvious that my love of cinema would last far longer than our relationship.

My worst kiss ... well, there have been a few. Maybe it was the one where I had a cold and was dosed up to the eyeballs with paracetamol (it's never good trying to kiss with a blocked nose). Or the one where I only kissed the guy because my friend really liked his friend and I didn't want to be left out. But thinking about it, the worst of all has to be when I kissed one of my own friends because I was just getting over a breakup and I was lonely. I knew he liked me, and I knew I didn't like him the same way, but I went ahead and did it anyway. I wish I hadn't. Not because the kiss was bad, but because it messed him around – and our friendship couldn't take it. I'm still sorry for that.

My best kiss ... that's easy. It wasn't my wedding day kiss, though that comes a close second. It was my first kiss with the man who is now my husband. We were strolling through a park at night. We didn't say much, though we kept glancing at each other. I knew I liked him, but I didn't know what he thought of me (though in retrospect, I suppose the fact that he was willing to stroll through a park at night with me was a bit of a giveaway). We walked under a bridge, and when we came out the other side it was as if we'd crossed an invisible boundary. And we stopped, and turned to each other, and kissed.

That's my favourite kiss not because of what it was like – though it was great – but because of everything that's happened between then and now. It could have been just another kiss, but it wasn't. It was the first kiss in the most significant relationship of my life. It's a kiss the two of us celebrate the anniversary of every year. And someday, hopefully when we're both ridiculously ancient, there'll be a last kiss to mirror that first. And those two kisses will bookend our lives: everything we've made and everything we've done and everything we've experienced together. The family we've built and the home we've created. The thousands more kisses we've shared in between.

I don't see how a kiss could be any more meaningful than that.

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