First kiss

24 years ago today I had my first date with the person who would become my husband 7 and a half years later!

We were in college together (I was 21, he was 20) and the 3 months or so leading up to this date we were part of the same group of college friends. We often sat together in class and after classes ended we’d stay chatting together in the canteen, long after all our friends had left and until we got kicked out by the concierge at the very end of the afternoon. We neither of us knew how to transfer the school friendship to a real date. We’d been out in a group with others around but never alone… until that January 25th. He finally was the brave one and asked me out alone, after I had dropped a gazillion hints about not having any plans for the weekend. We went dancing and had a good old time, both of us pretending we only liked each other ‘just as friends’. We spent all night dancing and the morning riding trains together on our free student public transport travel cards, ‘just as friends’. Finally we had to take leave and it is only there, when he dropped me off at my train, that we finally kissed for the first time!  That’s when our relationship started, on January 26th.

Even though I was head over heels in love with him, I wouldn’t have dreamt at the time that this would be the person I would end up wanting to spend the rest of my life with. After all, I’d been in love before, who could predict that this thing would last?

Our first picture together, taken a week after our first kiss. Don’t we look a bit like the two people in Gustav Klimt’s famous ‘The Kiss’ painting?

What I did know, even at the absolute beginning of our relationship, was that it felt completely right being with him. Very much like in the lyrics to David Bowie’s  “Absolute Beginners”.

I’ve nothing much to offer, there’s nothing much to take
I’m an absolute beginner, and I’m absolutely sane
As long as we’re together, the rest can go to hell
I absolutely love you but we’re absolute beginners
With eyes completely open, but nervous all the same

If our love song could fly over mountains,
Could laugh at the ocean
Just like the films
There’s no reason to feel all the hard times
To lay down the hard lines
It’s absolutely true

Our love song really has soared (flown over mountains, so to speak) and has sustained me through hard times and has given me absolute joy. And it’s been 24 years already! That baffles me because it sounds long, but really doesn’t feel like it’s been that long. In hindsight, I was very young finding the love of my life at only 21 but there you have it! Happy 24th first-kiss-anniversary to us!