The First Kiss

Over the weekend I celebrated my 51^st birthday by driving with my son and daughter to a pole vault competition about 3 and half hours from our home. Since my son has been competing in college in this event, he wanted to go to a couple of competitions over the summer to continue his training. At the last minute as we were getting ready to pull out of our driveway, our daughter Grace said she wanted to come with us to watch. My wife tried to talk her out of it, knowing that 7 hours of driving is not that exciting for a 10-year-old, but she insisted that she come along.

We arrived about an hour and a half before his group was scheduled to begin their warm ups. This was intentional so that we could watch some of the high school vaulters finish up their competition. We watched some of the high school girls vaulting indoors, and we watched the boys outdoors as well. The exciting part of the meet was seeing the NYS high school record broken in the presence of the previous record holder who had held the mark since 2011. As we were driving home, I asked my daughter what she liked best about the event and she said it was watching the record-breaking jump. She followed that up with stating that she wanted to begin her training tomorrow, and then she said, “I have my work cut out for me!”

It was a great reminder to me that what kids are exposed to can shape them by giving their imagination the opportunity to dream big. You may remember a time when you were young and you witnessed something and it made you want to be like that or do whatever it was that you saw. For me I remember watching the Olympics on TV and wanting to win a gold medal for the USA. It was seeing the excitement and joy in the winner’s reactions that sold me. Their feats or accomplishments were amazing, but the pure bliss and satisfaction they were experiencing for that moment made me want to have the same experience. I believe we all love to win at anything, and to win big at something that involved a lot of work, dedication and sacrifice makes it overwhelmingly sweet.

What those moments of joy do not depict are what I mentioned previously, the hard work, long hours, dedication, set-backs, struggles, frustrations, and discipline that led up to that brief moment of greatness. The other thing that you don’t see is what I call “the first kiss.” This refers to that moment when they realized they were in love this idea, sport, or pursuit. In a love relationship you only get one first kiss. That moment is special because no other kiss after that will measure up to the first kiss because of its newness and unfamiliarity. Not that it is all down hill after that, but that moment will never feel the same as the first kiss. Actually, that is when the work really begins, right after the first kiss. It may not seem like work at first, but it will parallel what I described earlier with all of the ups and downs.

None of this begins without the first kiss. Before that, is the opportunity to be in a position to have a first kiss moment. If my daughter didn’t persist on riding along with us, she would have never witnessed that moment of excitement and joy when the small crowd of people erupted with cheers as Louis Martinez vaulted over a cross bar suspended 17 feet 1 inch above the ground. She would have never saw his friends dog pile on top of him on the mats in total jubilation. It all came down to her getting a seat on the bus.

Opportunities are everywhere in life. Sometimes they are life changing to the point that they alter our path or our trajectory. As a chiropractor, and a studier of life and human behavior I take these first kiss moments very seriously because I know they can be make or break moments for people. This is why we encourage parents to take photos and videos of an infant’s first adjustment. It is a special moment that will never be able to be recaptured. They only happen when the action is taken to create the opportunity. I am very grateful to have shared in so many of these first kiss moments.

Lombardi Chiropractic Family Health Center
1116 Upper Lenox Ave.
www.lombardichiropractic.com
(315) 363-4114

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