On Moments
In my experience, memories form a sort of chain link of moments. I almost envision a long wire, stretched taut against a white wall, with hundreds of snapshots pinned to it, reaching far, far back. The time I accidentally whipped my tiny brother around a corner and left him scarred. The time my mother and I played hooky from elementary school and instead went to the beach. The time I sat with my cousin for hours by the ocean eagerly trying to mimic the cries of seals so that perhaps they’d answer us.
They’re fragments, quick moments in time. I have a vague picture of what happened, and from that, I suppose I construct the memory.
Getting out of my last relationship was trying, because it managed to coincide with a another major life transition, and thus a period of major depression. In hindsight, though, I’m ultimately glad it happened as it did, because it was mostly all wrong.
But the hardest part of moving on was letting go of some of the snapshots that were so unadulterated in their tenderness, the moments that I couldn’t find something wrong with.
I compiled a list of them (there were only 5), and then filled in the gaps with what was left (there were many), and with that, I crafted the anatomy of a naive, unfulfulling, but occasionally sweet relationship (and its subsequent end). Funny how it all happens.
In Order, the Things I Remember
The time we sat on my bed with a laptop perched between our knees and I was unsure about how much distance between us was too much and how much was not enough; you held my hand suddenly and it felt clichéd, but it was fitting because we were watching a romantic comedy and so I blushed
The time there was a downpour and as we were walking away from the baseball field, you stopped abruptly and turned to me to blurt, “you know what I’ve always wanted to do? Kiss in the rain”; you kissed me awkwardly and suddenly
The time we smoked cigarettes and drank tea (we both loved tea) in North Beach and you told me you wanted me to be more publicly affectionate; I was both irritated and deeply flattered
The time we sat on Ocean Beach smoking a joint and you told me you loved me but that you weren’t trying to marry me
The time we sat on my bed and you told me you knew you said you weren’t trying to marry me, and you weren’t, not just yet, but that you could see yourself wanting that kind of future
The time we walked down near Haight-Ashbury and you told me you loved houses with black shutters; we agreed to some day have a house with black shutters
The time I awoke to you kissing my shoulder blade; you thought I was asleep, and that kiss was just for you, but I wasn’t
The time you had snowflakes on your lashes and I quite literally felt weak at the knees and so we collapsed in the snow
The time we were in the bounce house after dark, outside of a building filled with sleep-deprived (recent) high school graduates and you just wanted to be there with me in silence
The time we met in Amsterdam and I took us on the wrong route to the hostel and we walked for miles and miles; you seemed slightly angry and this slightly upset me, but as soon as we were in the hostel, you archived your anger because you wanted me again (and we laughed about how short that session was)
The time I found myself in the airplane bathroom hastily applying makeup to bedraggled eyes so that when I disembarked and saw you, you’d remember how much you loved me
The time we climbed the hill near my house, just above the recycling center, and how I sweat all the way up the steep incline; it was still romantic somehow, with our sandwiches and raspberries
The time we sat in the bedroom with floorboards reverberating the noise from the party below and exchanged the letters we wrote; I wanted a letter because I wanted tangible evidence that someone could feel this way about me, and in it, you said all the right things
The time I opened my birthday package the day after our fight and found the CD of the song you’d so painstakingly recorded
The time we stood watching The National perform and despite fighting only hours earlier, you walked up behind me and wrapped your arms around me and buried your hands inside of my coat pockets
The time I sat on the bus in a group of loud college freshmen, feeling embarrassed by how drunk and noisy we were, when the boy in front of me turned around and asked if we were going to see Harry Potter, and I said yes, that it was the end of an era, and he said he’d felt the same way about Toy Story; he invited me to his show the following night and I laughed to myself when he said his name (it’s not the most appealing name) but was relieved it wasn’t yours
The time I carefully constructed a transcontinental care package for you (one that would communicate something somewhere between love and friendship) including 1 package tropical gum, 1 mix cd of covers and remixes of songs we liked, 1 magazine article about baseball, 1 illustration of all the countries we wanted to go to, 1 letter asserting something I only wished was true
The time you asked me over the phone if we really were trying to be just friends, and I said of course, and you told me about the new girl you’d been fucking, and added that this is what friends would talk about
The time I saw you after a four-month period of absence and realized that I’d just assumed I knew everything you had been going through, but in fact, you’d continued on your life and I hadn’t been a part of it; and I saw the girl and intuitively knew (and confirmed it later)
The time the man in the Palm Springs airport said “here, here” as I sat in the Palm Springs airport and sobbed for something I wasn’t even sure about
The time you couldn’t remember recording a song for me on my birthday
The time I could only say “we had plans” and you replied “people change” and I realized you were right
