Remembering Him

Authors note: I debated whether or not to put this up on my blog because it truly reveals what a psycho I am... Ok, maybe I'm just a hopeless romantic. When I wrote the "What is Enough" post I remembered that I had written this many years back. I believe I wrote this the year after I graduated from college, inspired after reading Alice Hoffman's book, "Here on Earth." The funny thing is, I was seeing my now ex-husband at the time I wrote this. Perhaps that should have been a clue. Although I have moved forward and no longer spend time remembering my first love, I suppose it still has a familiar echo...I think it can still resonate a bit inside all of us.

If I would have known that he would be in my life for 359 days, I would have remembered everything about him.

I would have remembered the way he smiled, the color of his eyes, the sound of his laugh. I would have remembered the way he held my hand and I would have let it linger on mine longer so never to forget the imprint it made on my heart. I would have remembered how he held me close to him, how he kissed me and made the world disappear. I would have remembered how our bodies intertwined and all of the love and desire that together flowed through them. I would have remembered every flower he brought me. I would have inhaled the air and remembered the smell of the day. I would have remembered each day for all that it was. I would have stayed awhile longer in the sunlight, felt every raindrop, and admired every snowflake. If I would have known that this love was the greatest and purest of it's kind, I would have remembered what it felt like to feel the sun from both sides.

There is something to be said for your first love. It never leaves you. No matter the time that goes by nor the distance that separates you, it's always there, somewhere in your heart. No matter how tainted the relationship or the years that go by after your last encounter, you always remember him. You see him in the man you love but can't remember what it is you see. You see him every night as you drift off to sleep hoping that he'll come to you in your dreams so that you can be together again. You wonder every day where he is and if he is successful...or married. You miss his family, that family that became yours. And no matter how much time passes by, it never gets any easier. You still cry when you are in your parents house, where he is still part of your last memory of what home is. You still ache when you drive past the spot that you called "yours." And you know that you can never go back to the place where he told you it was over.

You always remember him when a familiar song is on the radio, wondering if he hears it too and thinks, just for that minute, about you. You see an old movie on television, one that the two of you saw together, and you remember everything about that evening and how good it felt to have him next to you. You remember him when you are in the car, for no reason at all, you remember him. You smell him when a man walks by and tears well up in your eyes. You think of nothing else but him every time you drive through the city you last knew him to be in. You dress a little better when you go shopping, to the movies, to dinner, or to a club in the chance that he will be there. You worry that if he is he will think you look fat. You want him to be there every time you think it's possible. Somewhere, deep down, you wish he were there.

Just that one time, just for that night.

In everything you do, you remember him. His soul is entangled with yours and it never leaves. It is almost as if your souls are still together, that there is still some part of you and still some part of him that wants to hang on...wants to go back. You never are truly able to let him go and you never really want to.

Sometimes it seems as if he still haunts you only because it is all that you remember from your last days of having the most beautiful idea of what love is and all that it could be. You know that after this love, there may be no other chance to love this way again. You find yourself looking for him in your dreams only because you want to know how he is and you want to know he's still there. You hate waking up; you resist the daylight but finally succumb and lose him again. You wonder if he dreamt of you that night, if his subconscious found yours. You wonder if for those few seconds, minutes, or hours that you were together again...if he missed you when he awoke.

And you remember and you remember until suddenly you can't remember anymore. You laugh at yourself when you think about the loss. You begin to remember all the years that have passed, without him. And you feel foolish because you are obsessed with the man whom you have spent more time remembering than you actually spent with. But no matter how far you move on, no matter how many miles you may go, you always think about your first, perfect love. Whether it was perfect or not, you never stop hoping, believing, or enduring. You begin to feel that it's not because you are in love with him anymore, but because it is just so much easier to hang on than it is to let go...

And you remember.