First Loves

First Loves

Pink Taffeta dresses, shiny red shoes, high school sweethearts and bean dip…what do these things have in common? Well if you're like me they are things that I love, things that I've even called 'first loves' if you will. But another commonality between them is the fact that I haven't 'loved' any of them in a love time…well, except the bean dip! And It's that bean dip, that wonderful rich concoction that ran across my palette today causing a sensation that stirred to me raise the small dish of dip on the palm of my hand in reverence and cha cha around my living room while slowly dipping and double dipping my blue chip—savoring every crunch...
To have this much pleasure from something why would a person not want to enjoy it every day? I asked myself this question because as far as I was concerned…at that very moment… I could live forever off that bean dip and want for nothing more.
But then, of course, I remembered I had some pineapple cut up for dessert and well… as always—tomorrow is another day and I have that potato Kale dish still waiting to be put together! Is that how we are—fickle? As humans are we incapable of truly loving one thing and being content? I would have to think just because an object of our deepest affection got out of our sight for a year or twenty we would never find out way back to the original love and pleasure it once gave us.
I remember buying my one of my granddaughters some little shiny red shoes when she was about six months old because… well, because I saw them and I loved them. She could care less and spent most of the day kicking them off, but I would simply gather them up in her wake snag her and wiggle her little chubby feet back into them. And even now, she's five and has long forgotten the beautiful red shoes… me?... I have them in my secret treasure drawer where I peek at them now and again and sigh…man I love those shoes.
Back to bean dip…
What happened to where we didn't see each other for so long…to where it was replaced by other rich, poor, junky, abusive, ugly, beautiful and good tasting snacks. I think I found that the bean dip was fattening, or cosmic in the amount of gas it would cause (and we do gotta do about that when in the work place haha), or maybe I got bored because… it was brown or, I got tired of the cheese I started mixing with it and therefore I just fell out with the entire thing, instead of just taking it back to the purest form… the form I fell in love with.
When we met, it was just me and the bean… it was wonderful. We were compatible an unadulterated. We would sit for hours, sharing a good movie or a book. But then the outsiders came "you ever try your bean dip with cheese?" "Salsa?" "Girl don't you know that dip ain't good for you…it's gonna make you fat. I bet you haven't even looked at the label! You could do better in snack choices."
*sighing.
It was me. I left what we had in a quest for… better. I know that now… and you, you did the same… but I started it. Because when I came back you were … new and improved with like... chipotle sauce ugh…or like baja flavor ugggg and cheese built in… what was up! I was like…can't a girl get a simple bean dip… I'm out!
And now… look at us, after all these year and snacks and time and calories and ups and downs and marketing recalls…it's just me and you—the bean.
But I love mannn… I love you like it was the first time. And I promise… I won't lose you again. I won't trade you in for some cheap non nutritious substitute just because you aren't the prettiest snack on the block…and frankly you don't smell all that great either but… nobody is perfect… I love you and best of all… you love me back.
What else could I want!
…and they cha cha'd the day away.