I Only Remember That I Used To Love Him

I can barely remember his face. I can’t recall the touch of his hands and I honestly don’t recognize the old pictures of us. I try to recall the good times because I know at one point I was happy, but my mind is clouded. I can’t even remember the fights. I know he’s still there. He’s still a part of me. He still helped shape me into a better woman. I just can’t see him. It’s like feeling a stranger’s presence within my heart. I thought he’d be the one to always stick with me a little, but he’s not. And I’m glad.

Some days I feel sad that I can’t recall the memories easily.

For two years of my life, everything was him. I didn’t think a whirlwind could last that long, but once the final battle was over and the dust settled, I realized that fact. It’s such a blur. Almost as if I had amnesia and had no idea that was ever my life. Some parallel universe I unknowingly lived in. How could it be that you just forget the one you once loved?

I know his name. I know what he looks like, but I can’t remember him. I can’t remember the love anymore. Is it because it never really was love or perhaps because I’ve found a greater love? I think of him from time to time and hope he’s found what I’ve found. Hope he’s happy. But then again, I’m not sure I really do. We were much younger and much more naïve then.

What we thought was love was probably just infatuation; a fling instead of a partnership. Maybe I was so devastated by the heartbreak, that my mind just decided to erase him. Only half way through removing him, did it realize I needed him in order to learn and move forward.

Would I recognize him now if I passed him on the street? Would he me? I don’t know that I’d want to say hi. For the fear that all the past would come rushing back in. I remember the pain enough to know that I don’t want to feel it again. He never apologized, not really anyway. It was a good thing he didn’t. He shouldn’t have apologized. He wasn’t at fault for our relationship failing.

It was us together that was poison.

I still regret taking him back after we first broke up. My gut was telling me something and I ignored it. And yet, I was still surprised and shocked when he broke up with me three weeks later.

The way it ended I remember. My desperate actions still make me cringe. Maybe it was love because I was certainly blinded. Crying for a man who didn’t care for my existence at that point. How could he? It was a game. A power play and he won. It’s hard to see yourself at your lowest lows, but to never know their strength, is much harder.

I guess can’t understand what makes us love another.

To go off just a feeling seems like such a reckless idea.

But here we all are, searching for love and hoping to never let it go. Chemistry, we call it; a spark. A feeling is all it takes and then, off on a roller coaster ride we go.

So maybe that’s why the memories fade. Maybe the feeling has gone, the spark has diminished, and our once upon a time love story disappears with it.