a good kiss

As far back as I can remember, teenaged boys have confided in me. When I was very, very young my sister's and cousin's boyfriends told me things I wouldn't understand for years. When I was a teen, the boys I knew inschool all thought I was the one girl they could confide in. And now my kids' friends talk to me and tell me things that they don't feel they can tell anyone else. I don't exactly understand why I'm the one they talk to, but I do take the responsibility very seriously. They trust me and I try to never betray that trust.

One of the perks of having their trust is that I get to spend a lot of time thinking and talking about the important things in life like love and friendship and what makes you feel alive. And this week I got to talk about what makes a hug or a kiss good.

Let me say now that the teenaged boy I was talking about this with was actually talking about the hug or kiss of a friend, not a lover. I was trying to define why a certain friend's hugs were so much nicer than anyone else's hugs. And somehow kisses became included in the conversation. Specifically, we talked about what a good kiss says.

A good kiss says yes.

Not yes to sex or yes to romance or yes to the future. Not yes to a commitment or yes to a fling. Not yes in answer to any question. A good kiss says yes to you, the person being kissed. It says yes to who you are.

A good hug doesn't feel rushed. When someone who really knows how to hug hugs you, you feel as if they are perfectly content to hold you in their arms forever, as if they feels that that's where you belong. And when you're being hugged that way, you feel like you belong there too. You feel loved.

I have been fortunate enough to be hugged and kissed by the people who love me. And I've been fortunate enough to hug and kiss the people I love. I hope that I did a good job and that they know how much I love them.