Kissing Frogs

How many frogs have you kissed? Are you one of those "lucky" few who married your first love right out of high school or college? How do you know that you didn't just marry a frog and that Prince/Princess Charming is still out there and you just missed them as you were driving by? One of my high school friends married her high school sweetheart and she used to say that all she wanted to do was get married, have kids and be a housewife. Well mission accomplished! She did it, and you know what? He has a head full of gray hair and she always has this pinched look on her face. They're only 33. So did they find love for all time? Well I'd like to think so because they are nice people and have never really done anything wrong as far as I know. They just chose another life than the one I had envisioned for myself. I, too, had that high school boyfriend that I was going to marry, have 2.5 kids with and celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary with some day, but he turned out to be a frog. Or maybe I was his frog, I don't know. We were, however, a beautiful couple together and would have had beautiful babies if the whole thing hadn't gone wrong. We had one of those breakups where you just don't fight anymore, one person leaves to go do something and the other just packs up and leaves. I left while he was at work.

So my question is do you have to kiss the frogs before you know you've found the right one? What if the right one was just having a bad day or chapped lips? Do you throw him/her on the discard pile anyway? I myself have kissed many froggies and at least 2 toads. The toads unfortunately I'm stuck with for a while, since I have children with them. I asked some of my friends how many frogs they had to kiss and several agreed that you had to kiss frogs before you found your prince/princess, but they had indeed found their prince/princess after all the kissing. So to truly know and appreciate your prince you must have to kiss a frog, right? How many do you kiss before you become a serial frog kisser?
10 years ago I would most likely not have given my prince a second thought. I probably would have given him the kiss off. Back then I was a self-involved princess that was used to getting her way and only cared about partying, having a good time, new clothes and a cute boyfriend. I would have said oh, yeah he's cute and then moved on. My prince is 14 years older than me. He was fighting in Lebanon in the Marines when I was in grade school. But having survived my frog kissing days I've found that he's the only one I want to kiss. Some of my friends were floored that I would marry a man 14 years my senior. "What do you have in common?" or "He's so much older than you." were common phrases when I announced our engagement and soon after marriage. He is my prince because of the way he treats me, the way he looks at me, and the way he lets me be crazy or silly and still loves me. He has had his share of frogs too, so he has learned to let a lot of things slide that aren't worth getting worked up over.
I've been thinking about this frog theory some lately, because our oldest just had his heart stomped on by a girl that he thought was "the one." They had dated for quite a while a couple of years ago, but she moved and they broke up. She started seeing someone else but kept talking to our son as friends. She must have had a fight with her boyfriend and had gone back to our son to make the other guy jealous. She then decided to go back to her boyfriend telling our son "I love you, but I'm not in love with you." Ouch, ouch, ouch. He's only 20 so this whole ordeal has been earth shattering. He's getting over it and in a couple weeks he'll move on to another girl.
Our almost 11 year old is starting to discover that girls are not so bad and always has girls coming up to him to talk at football or basketball games. I wish that the boys didn't have to kiss frogs and maybe they'll luck out and only have to kiss a few before they find their princess. Who knows?
At least our littlest still thinks girls are gross and infested with cooties for now.
Although I must end this on the note that there is hope for first loves being “The One.” Another of my friends and her high school boyfriend have been married for 15 years and are still hopelessly in love with each other and want to spend time together. He just built her a beautiful house and they have 3 beautiful kids together. So there is hope for the fairy tale after all.