Day 10 - Discuss your first love and first kiss.

It depends on what you consider to be my "first love." My first crush lasted over 10 years but I never really got to know him. He ran in different circles and, thus, I could not break the crush by willpower because I didn't really know the guy. I only knew what I saw from a distance. Eventually, he moved away and I saw him less and less. The crush really didn't dissipate until I became interested in other guys. In my mind there have only been two guys in my life. The one that I hardly knew, and the man that became my husband.

I dated three guys before meeting Tim. They were all good guys, but not the ones for me, and I didn't kiss any of them. When Tim and I began spending more time together and getting to know each other I made it clear that it was important for me to not kiss until we were married. If any of you are familiar with the book "The 5 Love Languages" you'll know what I mean when I say my primary love language is touch. Essentially, we all have basic ways of expressing and accepting love. The most impactful kind of expression to me has always been touch. Often, the more obvious signs that someone's primary love language is touch is how much they touch other people. Either they are very huggy because that is special to them or they avoid touching people altogether because it is too special to them to be given away freely. I am of the latter generalization.

Even during our dating period there were points at which my mom warned Tim that he was occasionally putting me in difficult situations because he didn't understand how important any kind of touch was to me. Tim understood what she meant by that after we were married.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I'd gone 22 years without kissing a boy. One more year wasn't going to kill me. Don't get me wrong: it was REALLY HARD and it is NOT FOR EVERYONE. But I knew enough about myself by that point to know that kissing would be crossing a line in my mind. I equated kissing to a form of intimacy which would be wrong for me to do before marriage. So our wedding day rolls around and I walk down the aisle with my dad and sister (we had a double wedding) and I was virtually floating down the aisle. I wasn't just getting married, I would get to kiss him in a few minutes! And, oh, how much I wanted to kiss him!

30 minutes later the pastor mentioned that I had saved my first kiss for Tim and we were now husband and wife and "you can now kiss..." I don't think I let him finish the sentence before I jumped on him. At least, that's what I felt like I was doing but the video doesn't look quite as enthusiastic as I remember. But the kiss itself is a lot longer than I remember. Oh, and the hoots and hollers and cheers were a lot louder than I remember. I was finally kissing my husband! And it was a little awkward.

We practically ran down the aisle, allowed our parties to congratulate us, then we scurried off to a nearby corner to get in some more practice.

No, we didn't notice the sign. It was 100% candid. Which is why it is one of my favorite wedding pictures.

I'm glad I made that decision for myself and Tim was so supportive, despite being quite eager.

And... don't worry, we're much better at it now.