What's in a Kiss?

Today a man proved me that you can marry a person and, after twenty five years of being together, still see in that person the one you once knew and fell in love with. He showed me that true love does exist, even though it's very rare, and, whatsmore, brought down the myth that men can't fall deeply in love.

Another very common day at my very common job: I get there ten minutes before class start, I greet the other teachers and get into my classroom, I prepare everything I need for my class and wait for my boss to tell me who I'm seeing today. She waltzes in -she's always in an extremely happy mood- and says "you have to see this new student. He needs English for his work, but I really have no idea what he is specifically looking for, so just go through the elementary book and make him write a few things, and we'll see later".

A person knocks on my door "shall I come in?", he says in a perfect, but rather shy, Spanish. "Please, do and sit down. I'm Flor, nice to meet you", shy myself, I try to sound as confident as possible. After all, having a first class with a teacher that sounds hesitant is not very promising.

Introductions done, we start working. While I listen to him talking about his life and career, I take a pip at the book in my desk; random info, all very easy. I decide to stop in unit 18, though. "Anecdotes and love stories".

My next question is "Tell me about your wife and you two met", and what followed was the most heart-felt speech I've ever heard in my life. To be short and to the point, he talked about how they met and started dating, all very cliched, but then he said something that caught my attention. He said "Try as I may, I could never imagine my life without her, simply because she IS my life." Just like that. Just those few words that show love does exist.

Maybe my generation ((or should I take all the blame?)) has a much harder time at believing in this true-love fairy tale because we seem to trust in divorce as the solution to all marital issues. Maybe we can't seem to get into our heads that we can actually fall in love. Maybe we are simply not up for it?

Whatever the reason is, after today's talk with Mr. Arana, I can say I believe again. And I can also say I'm looking forward to get to love a person that way, to wait eagerly for that special someone to come back home and to kiss him good morning and good night for the rest of my life.

Cliched? Passè? Corny?

Most surely. But proud to be so.



Today's Pick: The Fear You Won't Fall by Joshua Radin