I didn’t love him, but I could have.
I have been hoping to put this to paper, but I’ve been patiently waiting for something: for it to cave in or for it to develop much further first. How could I describe something without it slipping into a sort of comparison of past experiences, of people, of geography, and days? What if I penned a piece only to have it unravel soon thereafter? But I want to feel it fully, and I want to share with perfect strangers everywhere these moments because what if it ends up being great, what if I could catalogue it from conception?
I met someone new at the end of July. Be it happenstance or the universe finally bending in my favour, I was intrigued enough for it to warrant a first date. Rare. It was a combination of things — intricate, long messages chock full of coincidental similarities: our parallel MA thesis topics, his mother sharing my middle name, our immigrant grandparents from neighbouring towns in the heart of Italy … all of it brought me to the world’s most adorable bar on that first Saturday night.
The date was prolonged; minutes turned to hours until suddenly we had spent three days together. It was so easy, so seamless that it was borderline careless.
I struggle to find adequate words to explain ways having him came at the perfect time, on the heels of the hardest relationships and year I’ve endured in my entire 27 years. I was, and still combat this feeling now, hesitant to enjoy everything so fully: anxiety and anticipation of the what if. It was dramatic. It was completely falling into each other when we both needed it the most and peeling apart so abruptly nearly two months later before choosing wholeheartedly to continue on together: this time, thoughtfully and intentionally.
At first, the relationship and interaction was emblematic of everything we had learned so far — and that weighed us down. Both of us had predetermined borders and rules, fears that saturated everything. I’d wake up each night to him sleep talking, whispering “I love you” into my ear. A phrase he’d never remember saying in the morning, and certainly one I didn’t feel in return, not yet. Still, I don’t. But I could and that’s an extraordinary feeling to entertain.
This time, I feel older and wiser. I’m sound enough to acknowledge my faded adoration for people in my past, for lovers that always fell short. I want to extend this feeling, this inkling of what if it works. I’ve signed up for it all: hard moments, the easy days, times where we are both beyond succumbing to the ongoing stress of success and the crippling reality of aging. When I have him, frustrated, and one of us breaks the tension with a smile. I adore him.
It’s more than claiming my side of his bed, finding my favourite sweater in his closet, play-fighting as if we were children again. It’s more. It’s more than crying together and letting friendship become adoration despite all the times that had been ripped from us before. It comes in time, it grows as we invest ourselves. It’s showing him I’m still standing there, choosing to exist in the right now, always. It’s him showing me he cares, validating every sweet musing he verbalizes. We believe in each other a little more every day.
It’s not coincidental actually, that every decision and moment has led me to this exact space where I’ve been afforded the opportunity to connect in this way at this time. I just want to make it last and write the narrative I think we both deserve. It came at a time of such hopelessness and loneliness, but he’s been a light through it all. I feel lucky, so I won’t wait for it to break or to grow; I want to remember this exact feeling. Write this sensation out, explore the what if.
September 2018
