The kiss

In my daily routine, I function mostly in my own "life-bubble" world. I go about my relief days greeting veterinary clients and coworkers as friends, making personal connections and networking as much as possible.  I have been known to tell a joke or two to liven up the daily hospital routine.  I am not  "on the hunt" in my professional or personal life for potential dates.  I am usually running late and just trying to get the outpatient appointments and surgeries done for the day so that I can get home at a reasonable hour. My lunch break, if  I get one, is spent on my iPhone or reading a veterinary journal. I work long days often with a long commute home in Chicago traffic.  Who has the time and energy to look for potential men to date during the typical veterinary work day?

About 2 years ago, I was feeling depressed from a series of  first dates from a dating website that did not yield any love connections.  I decided to stop dating and planned to just concentrate on my veterinary career. This life plan would change suddenly on a September Saturday morning. This particular Saturday morning, I attended the annual local ski mountain employment meeting to sign up as a ski instructor  for the upcoming ski season. I was looking forward to chatting with  my ski coworkers that had become good friends. I saw people I knew right when I arrived and hung out with them in the long line awaiting the sign up table. I got my annual work ID  picture taken. I had just celebrated a birthday and a few friends bought me belated birthday presents.  A good friend was waiting for me at the end of the line. We skied together last ski season and enjoyed several conversations in the ski lodge. And, yes, some flirtation did occur during these conversations. But he had a girlfriend at the time so I put him in the "friend" category. Occasionally, we had chatted over the summer though Facebook.  We made tentative plans to meet up as friends for a day of summer fun but our schedules did not work out for us to get together.  Now at the ski meeting, we sat together and and caught up on our lives.  I  told him of my dating woes. That I had given up and was tired of dating. Maybe I should do what several divorced female celebrities did and just find a much younger guy to be my "boy toy." He laughed. We walked around the grass covered ski hill.

It was time to leave and he walked me back to my truck.

In the past, I have been walked back to my truck by men while in anticipation of what could possibly happen next. And, unfortunately, I have been sadly disappointed when these men just turned and walked away.  However, this man hugged me when we got back to my truck. And he hugged me in a way that I knew that he would  kiss me next.  Oh boy!  And he did. He kissed me in that awkward first kiss way. I was totally shocked. One true surprise of my life that I will never forget. I didn't know what to say after the kiss.  I was embarrassed and tried to ignore the fact that a friend just kissed me. So I did what I normally do often and well, I just kept talking about anything to hide my surprise and discomfort with this new situation.

We talked for a little while after and then went our separate ways. I got in my truck and drove home thinking "I can't believe this person just kissed me".  It was a great surprise. And it made me smile for days!



There is more to this story but I will save it for future blogs. Be sure to sign up to be notified about future installations.

Thanks for reading my blog! I promise to keep blogging on a more routine schedule!