the gift of remembering

in honor of this week's episode of Wild Geese about the intersection of love & creativity - an ode to lovers past

memories of past loves are clouded by the leaving. images of them unravel while i pull at old memories like they’re loose strings on an itchy sweater. i’m ripping something apart that was once whole and beautiful and warm to me. now, it’s uncomfortable. it’s too small.

i wish i wrote more back then so i could have a portal to what i once felt.

i’m writing more now and keeping most of it to myself because it feels too ripe for viewing.

but here’s some loose strings from the past, so at least i have that

my first love

was late to school almost every day and constantly got kicked out of class for his five o’clock shadow. the teachers would send him to the restroom with a rusty razor to address the beard. our schools dress code was a bit silly that way. he was a kid. but his facial hair was growing faster than he could keep up with.

lots of things were growing faster than he could keep up with. even though he worked more than any of our friends, he often couldn’t pay for a full tank of gas. systemic issues piled up around him. luckily, he had the currency of charm which won him unwavering support from teachers and friends. i started packing his lunch and texting him worried paragraphs when he didn’t show up to school.

i always made him drive. after a bad car accident the year before, i was happy to sit in the passengers seat and belt out show tunes. at my feet, weeks of old fast food trash piled up on his floor boards. i didn’t care. the excitement of young love will leave you careless.

we’d make out in my basement while gilmore girls played in the background. afterwards, the two of us would slink upstairs and say hi to my parents with flushed cheeks. mostly though, we fell in love in the lamplit parking lots of my hometown. we’d sit in empty lots for hours, talking until my 11 o’clock curfew.

hours passed under fragile pockets of privacy; always ready for the sudden interruption of family, friends and headlights. it’s funny how young love often means you’re never truly alone together.

i wanted to include a whole paragraph about what he taught me, what we laughed about, who we were then. but if i’m honest, i can’t remember any of that anymore. it’s been so long, all i really have are blurry bundles of memories lasting a few seconds here and there.

this fact would have been a great comfort to me at 18 as i moved through a new city with memories of a boy, so vivid they left me gasping alone on the subway. now, it’s a little sad to know something changed my life and my understanding of myself so profoundly but i genuinely can’t remember most of it, even when i try.

all i can say with certainty is that he was the first straight(ish?) boy that i ever felt a deep friendship with. i remember laughing more than i ever had with a boy before. i don’t know if it was because anything was really all that funny or because i just really loved his laugh. it was explosive and left me feeling almost high, like i had won something valuable each time it burst out of his mouth.

he was loud and irresponsible and playful and talented.

and he would flirt with other girls, often and unapologetically, right in front of me. i felt i had no right to say anything because “that’s just his personality.” but on a school trip to nyc, my dad pulled me aside with scrunched brows and asked if i felt disrespected by this behavior. i laughed uncomfortably and brushed off the observation.

one thing about my dad though - he is often, infuriatingly, right.

we were caught in a cycle of crossed boundaries that went un-communicated because i didn’t have the tools necessary for connection back then. i practically worshipped at the feet of the silent treatment. folding into myself, i would repeat “i’m fine,” when i obviously wasn’t. it was a retaliatory cruelty. nothing out of the ordinary for a sixteen year old girl.

so we fell in love in parking lots and broke up in one too. we performed the roles of beauty and the beast the next weekend. afterwards, little kids asked “are you two really in love?”

i fled in a princess dress to go throw up in the bathroom. and i’m not kidding, heartbreak left me heaving for weeks.

my second love

couldn’t grow a beard to save his life. freshmen year, i sat in a dining hall with him and mused “you’re so mysterious,” in an uncharacteristic moment of bravery. after weeks of knowing him, he had fallen into the nooks and crannies of my life by default of aligned schedules.

after class, we’d get dinner together with a group of classmates three days a week. during these dinners, it always felt like he was trying to fade into the background in a way his appearance wouldn’t allow. he always had questions to ask but he never had answers to give.

he was evasive and frustrating and gentle and kind.

getting to know him felt like a prize. one he didn’t award many people. i felt like i was peaking behind the curtain at a show that hadn’t quite opened but the crowd was gathering with excitement and I had a VIP pass.

over the next few years, we fell in love slowly and then all at once. in tiny, smoke filled, east village apartments we got drunk and high and always left the parties last. the hosts were practically begging us to go home every time. we were so reluctant to leave because we knew that sobriety meant the distance of denial would return.

before we ever acknowledged these feelings, our class put together a secret santa. he opened his gift, flushed, and hid it from the group. years later, when we were deep in a committed relationship, he told me his secret santa had gifted him a framed picture of me.

he had patience and gentleness that i had never seen in a man before. i have a relatively short fuse, so his energy was like a warm bath i could sink into. he loved to cook and he would often pause an entire day’s activity to devote himself to a home cooked meal.

i joke that he taught me how to eat. it’s hardly a joke though, his whole family would gather around candle lit dinners every night while i was practically raised on frozen TV dinners. i saw a vision of a future bathed in warmer light.

he worked with kids and had a knack for teaching. i always admired his refusal to deal out shame in the way his teachers had. as a kid with severe ADHD, school had not been kind to him. so he understood the importance of taking care. i fantasized about the kind of father he could become. such fantasies are usually not fair.

i remember holding each other in the ocean, three modelos deep. i remember the way he held me when my mother received a scary diagnosis. i remember head scratches every night until i was fast asleep and he stayed awake beside me. i remember practicing my spanish with him and relishing the look of amazement he would give when i progressed. still, it’s not enough. there are so many memories lost to time.

the contents of our five year relationship are too deep and wide-reaching to envelope in one essay. but i think our ending can actually be explained in one conversation we had very early in the relationship.

i asked him “what do you want in life?” and he said “you.”

i said, “that’s very romantic.”

he said “well, it’s true.”

I said “but seriously, what do you want, aside from me?”

and we sat. and sat. and he couldn’t think of an answer. and that scared me.

i told him “you have to think of an answer because there is no guarantee that i will always be here, even if I want to now.”

at the end of our five years together, he hadn’t found what he wanted and his want for me had waned as my resentment towards his wantlessness grew.

i wish i would have given myself the agency to leave sooner. and i wish he would have too. we were very unhappy for a very long time before we built up the courage to let each other down.

my next love

will look different, as they always do. this one will be documented, because i’m writing more now. i don’t know when or if i will share any of this with you. but god, will i have it for me to look back on.

there is something that tastes bitter about memories that disappear. some of them gone by sheer force of will, forced out by the ache. others slipped out quietly, carefully conceding to new memories taking shape. i don’t always know how to let go and i know this is just a natural process in the procession of time.

but somedays, i’d give anything to remember. not because i want it back. but memory changes every time you look at it. it ripples like water. there are moments, especially when i’m in love, when i think “i’ll never forget this” or “i never want to forget this.” but time continues to take. and i’d like to give myself the gift of remembering.