Happy Valentine's Day!

Day: One Hundred and Ninety Seven

Photo taken on Monday, February 14, 2011 in the bedroom at 952pm.

In my freshman year of high school if you paid them $2 (of course you had to pay them, nothing was ever free at my high school) you could fill out a pink form with a bunch of relationship type questions on it. Then they would enter all your information in a computer and on Valentine's Day you found out who in the school would be a perfect match for you. The most risque question on the sheet was:

Do you kiss with your eyes:

a) Closed
b) Open
c) Don't know
d) Who kisses?!

Maybe it was there as a trick question and whoever picked anything but D was immediately going to hell but the oddest choice to me was B. I could not fathom leaving your eyes open during kissing. Everyone in the movies closed their eyes and it was passionate and wonderful and just seemed like the right way to kiss. So anytime I kissed a boy I squeezed my eyes shut and on one occasion did it too soon and ended up colliding with his chin instead. I think I left braces marks on his skin too.

But then everything I knew about eye closing and kissing changed when I had my epic first kiss with Steve in the hotel room I was sharing with Christine down in Disney. The second our lips met my eyes snapped open and I watched him kiss me back. Even though I willed my eyes to close-they didn't-and remained open throughout the monumental kiss lasting 20 minutes (Christine took the longest shower in her history of showers because she hoped we would finally just get together already and wanted to give us enough time. Thank you, Christine! It worked!). I figured it was just the excitement of finally being with Steve and that eventually I would begin to close my eyes again but I never did. Then the wedding was around the corner and I worried I would look like a freak in the pictures because who on Earth kisses with their eyes open in pictures?!

Even now, I kiss him with my eyes open no matter what type of kiss it is. Sometimes I watch his face, sometimes I watch the TV behind him so I don't miss anything good, and sometimes I survey the area to make sure no one is witnessing this disgusting public display of affection. Ultimately, I think my eyes remain open because no matter how many times I kiss him, I'm still shocked that I found my soulmate.