Love...Not Actually

I think about you in the Fall. Always. Perhaps because that was the time when we first met and fell for one another. The crisp air, the crunch of fallen leaves underfoot, the smell of pies being baked… and I can almost hear your laughter. Feel your touch on my hand. I remember the way a breeze would come and ruffle your unruly bleached blonde hair and I would tuck myself into your chest because of the chill. I live in a place now that doesn’t really have Fall; I had to get away from all those thoughts of you. I remember the first time I knew I was in love with you. It was our second date - I don’t really believe in wasting time. Only we were broke and in undergrad, so it was not so much a date as it was hanging out in your friend’s dorm room. When I walked in you were playing guitar, the first few chords of Soul to Squeeze. I only mildly liked the song then; today it can break my heart to hear. We wound up sleeping on the floor there that night, completely wound and entangled in one another’s limbs. Nonchalant to the heartbreak the next 4 years would bring us. I also think of you on stormy summer nights. Especially during the ones where the rain comes down in sheets and the wind tears through everything in its path. Like the one that whipped around the car that night that you asked me to marry you. I told you no, and I still mean it when I say it was for your own good. I think you get that now. I’m still a mess, you’re still pretty perfect. I didn’t want you to have any regrets, and instead you are my biggest one. Every part of me wishes I didn’t want to protect you and had said yes.
I once told you to never tell me that you loved me; that I didn’t believe in saying it. It was simple enough to say, but actions always spoke louder than words. So you only told me twice. Once, while I was in the hospital and you prefaced it with an apology. “I’m sorry. I love you.” Another time, almost 2 years later. Curled into one another on a lazy Saturday morning, my head on your chest and you thought I was still asleep, you whispered it. I whispered it back. Now I wish I had shouted it from mountain tops and that you were here to whisper it to me every day.
I was your first. I wish I had been your last. I wish I had understood that not every man feels a primal urge to bed everything within 50 miles. Just the douchebags. Had I known that you wouldn’t have regretted me being the one and only, I wouldn’t have pressed so hard on you for me to not be. I wish I hadn’t laughed when you told me about finally sleeping with someone else. Mainly I laughed because you slept with my doppelganger. It was kind of a sign that you still loved me. I wish I had cried because apparently that was your sign that I cared. It was years later I would realize that I honestly didn’t care, as long as you came home to me. My ego laid down and died wherever you were concerned. You used to let me kiss you just to see how long I could. I once kissed you for two and half hours straight, and had chapped lips for a week after. The reality is that I could have kissed you until my dying breath and not missed a beat.
I moved 900 miles from you to try and forget you. But they had Fall in New England, too. Turns out they’re known for it and it made me miss you more. You used to call and tell me that no matter how far I ran I could never get away from myself. You weren’t wrong and I moved back a year later and promptly set up house with someone who was so reminiscent of you that my nephew kept calling him by your name. But he wasn’t you, so it didn’t last.
You congratulated me on the house I bought to renovate and restore, knowing it was exactly what I always wanted. But you would never mention the man I bought it with, to spend the rest of my life with. That’s ok, I try to not mention him too much either. I told you we were thinking of having our wedding in the backyard. You only said, ‘that’s very you.’ We obviously never did have that backyard wedding, mainly because he was never you. I don’t think anyone ever can be. I found out later you had bought an empty lot the next street over and right across from my house. Why?
I date ridiculously silly men now. There is never a chance that they will do something that reminds me of you. It also helps if they are totally inept in the kitchen because you really loved to be there. There is also never a chance that they will wake me in the middle of the night to feverishly discuss architecture into the wee hours. I gave that up after you, you should know that. A slide rule makes me want to sob, but I tell everyone it was because I didn’t want to finish my college career making models out of sticks.
For awhile I questioned if ‘The One’ would ever come along. Then I made excuses that there is no such thing. There are several in the world who could be right for you and other comforting nonsensical notions. Now I’ve decided that I should just go with someone to spend the rest of my days with because I obviously already had ‘The One’. I don’t know if I was that to you as well, but I think maybe I was. Every woman you’ve dated after me is eerily like me. Just perhaps, not as crazy. And really? Where is the fun in that.