Writing--"My next first kiss"

Waiting on my semi-blind date to show up, but I can't help thinking about you. One might never remember the last kiss, mostly because they never think it will be their last one. But one always remembers the first. You weren't even my last first kiss, but, as I hope for my next first kiss, I still think about ours. Wonder how this one will be different. Better. Worse. More awkward. The beginning of something or a failed test drive.

Two men at a nearby table are, I think, having their first date. The older, white gentleman is talking about trying to build a relationship with his ex. I really hope I don't talk about you like this to my date. His date is a beautiful dreadlocked black man who looks a decade younger than the other man. He reminds me of Steve Ewing, which of course reminds me of you.

I keep trying to dream of "my future life dream", the new one I need. The one that doesn't include you. Or anyone else for that matter. At least not romantically. Last night, I told you I want you to push me to move away from the Midwest when I finish up schooling here. To move where I know no one, or at least not like I know people here. I like thinking it will be San Francisco, gay-central, 60s all year round, sea right there. You liked the idea too. I wonder about what kind of life I'd have to show you when you've visited, what places, what friends. I bet we'd find excellent sushi there. Maybe by then I'll be able to pay for it. Published author- novels, short fiction, and essays/freelance articles for magazines. A small but cozy house, hopefully NOT a fixer-upper, but still in the city, or close enough to it. Or a comfy loft or apartment that I own, outright. Full of books. Full of the best and newest technology. Lots of movies on DVD, or whatever is the latest way of keeping films. Comfy chairs all around ( I really like chairs and recliners more than couches, but I'm sure I'll have at least one of those, just to make out on.). Enough acquaintance to get invited to parties and have fun but not too many that i don't have any time to myself. A few very close friends to lean on when I need it, who I can be devoted to also. But I hope that you'd still be my bestfriend, visiting often. Maybe you'd move out here for a good job. You'd be my relief from the lesbian drama and all my self-importance. My link to a past where I was just another girl, where I wasn't known at all, where I wasn't a published writer. I hope to exercise every few days. Meditate daily and be a real part of a sangha. Have a semi-strict writing schedule. Have a piano that I play regularly. Have a big bed. Have big windows. Maybe how to cook food that is better for me. Be healthy and comfortable in my skin, physically and emotionally, even if I'm not average or thin. Be open to love but not grasping at it, feel like I'm nothing without it. Know more about myself sexually. Be politically and socially involved in all kinds of stuff. No kids myself but helping underpriveleged children maybe.

NO KIDS. Weird concept. All the time I was sleeping with men, I never doubted that I'd have kids. With you, I felt early on that I wanted to have your children, that it would be a privelege, though we didn't have to worry about an unplanned pregnancy because we didn't have sex. Before that, I was sure I'd have kids before I was ever ready. Now that I'm only seeing women in my future (or your celibate self, unfortunately I do still want that, but I'm trying), I'm free of that worry. It feels oddly liberating, but also wrong, transgressive. I suppose it still is transgressive. Most women still say they want kids, someday at least. Even lesbians, maybe especially lesbians, dream of creating families. But then who takes care of you, if you don't have kids? It's not like I have siblings & neices/nephews to take care of me. But, on the other hand, my kids would probably just push me into an impersonal nursing home where I'd just wait to die. How depressing! The freedom of your life belonging to you is the trade-off of dying alone. One never thinks of this when they are planning on dying young, any day now, from a much mourned though always expected suicide.

I hope that I leave somehting indelable behind, even if I end up dying childless in a nursing home, alone. A revered book read centuries later that changes lives. Do you think anything written centuries before can be life changing, life saving? Ok, so maybe just read a few decades later. Interesting essays that work as historical reference for future students wanting an intelligent discussion of some aspect of contemporary life-LGBT issues, politics, feminism, art, music, anything.

I wish I could draw so I could visualize my new dream. I have to develop a dream that is without a romance, or a clearly defined significant other. So that it can by my rock, my solid ground for my future, no matter how crazy my current life is- something to drive me when the current work seems too much. All I have at this moment is a face-less date and your assurance that you believe I could be the best, kindest person you've ever known.

Still waiting for my next first kiss.