The ones who came before | Part III

It wasn't until I sat down to write this that I realized—I haven't written about you since you left. My last memories of us are a blur of packing and preparing—you, literally, to move across the country, and me, in all the other senses of the word.

My first memory of you as the person you became to me was Fourth of July that first year we knew each other. We were both at the bar where we worked; Meg was there and a handful of other servers, hostesses, a manager. It was one of the slowest nights I can remember; one man sat at the main bar eating a big meal. When the fireworks started, we left him there with his meatloaf and potatoes, and we all poured onto Mass Ave to watch. I've always loved the Fourth of July because Central Square becomes a ghost town, Mass Ave a sidewalk. We all put our arms around each other in camaraderie, and I remember you ever so slightly squeezing my hip. It was so slight that I assumed it was my own burgeoning feelings toward you that felt it. It wasn't until months later when you mentioned that as your first move on me that I realized I hadn't made it up. I had read the signs right.

We were friends and coworkers for a long time before we were anything else. We were both seeing other people—you more seriously than I—and so I had resigned you to being a friend. Even as I write this I feel that there is too much to write. You were my first realizations of all that I could want from a person.

We were a slow burn, sizzling under the surface of our friendship until we jumped in. We scrambled back out a few times before jumping back in and staying there. You were fresh out of something long and meaningful; I was fresh out of something short and sweet. You had just decided to pick up and move back to southern California, where you'd left some pieces of you that you needed back. At the time, it seemed like the worst possible moment to start something, but I know now that it was perfect. It was a collision of sorts; we came at each other fast and milked it for all it was worth. We said goodbye at the peak.

There were bad nights, too. The night we met at The Miracle of Science and you told me that it was too soon, that parts of you owed it to her to try again. The night you invited me over after work and all of your friends were there. We stood in your room and you said with regret, "I can't ask you to leave this late at night." There were those looks you gave me, as though I were a fragile vase you didn't want to be responsible for. I understand now those conflicting feelings—we were on different pages, learning very different lessons about ourselves in the process.

Our set expiration date was an unrecognized gift because what it boils down to is that you were not the person I could confess myself to. Sometimes when I'm singing Miley Cyrus or Taylor Swift at the top of my lungs, I think of what you would say if you could see me. You would laugh jokingly because you are not cruel, but I know that it would change the way you see me, your opinion of me, how seriously you would take me. And that's it, isn't it? We all need that person we can pour ourselves out in front of without having to hold anything back or cover anything up.

The smell of industrial cleaners and old beer puddled under taps still remind me of you. Those songs that you, Meg, Taylor, and I would all sing together; the deep scent and burn of whiskey; Central Square really early in the morning on my bike in the cold.

Those who came before | Part II

You were wearing a Hawaiian shirt when I met you. Should I have taken that as a sign of the way things would go? In a way, I have you to thank for a lot of things—you pushed me to take chances, to go for what I actually want, to figure out what that is. Things were good while they lasted, and you left me wanting more, just from someone else. You clarified for me that my time is precious, that my love is valuable and should be given freely but consciously. We were not enough for each other, but I hope I was as much a step in the right direction for you as you were for me. You loosened me up, reminded me that I could catch someone's attention, dazzle them with my wit, keep them coming back for more. You were exactly what I needed at the exact time I needed it.

We planned a big trip. It was too early in our relationship, and when your friends bailed, I already had my passport and a knot in my stomach about whether or not it would be right. You distanced yourself from me as fun and casual turned to questions we were not ready to answer. You ended things cleanly, and I realized that—when you left and all I could think about was how I would lose the money I'd spent on my plane ticket—things were not right anyway. I pouted in Jenna's room and she said, "You didn't like him anyway!" I knew she was right, but I was accustomed to taking rejection personally.

I took that trip, my first time out of the country. Meg came with me instead, and our week in Costa Rica solidified our friendship in a way I will always be grateful to you for. I went beyond my comfort zone on that trip; I laid on beautiful beaches and read One Hundred Years of Solitude; I stayed up late and smoked cigarettes on the porch of our hotel while Meg slept. I went to dinner by myself and ordered wine and felt grown up. Meg and I ordered pina coladas and caiparinhas at a bar where locals stared and we giggled and did not care. We said, "I can't believe we're here!" over and over and we meant it. We went to a movie night at a cafe where we watched Slumdog Millionaire and ordered milkshakes. We hiked up the steepest hill to a waterfall. We saw monkeys in the trees on our way back. We feared for our lives in a chartered van up a mountain; we had to go to sleep to ease our anxiety about his driving. We had massages and spent way too much money on dinner and frozen drinks.

I don't think of you often, except when that Feist album comes on or that one Ingrid Michaelson song we used to sing together in that tiny room of mine at 20 Lopez. Or sometimes I think of that time we snuck into the chapel at MIT and you played piano while I sang at the top of my lungs, my voice echoing high into the ceiling and feeling so grateful to be alive in that moment. We thought we heard someone come in, so we snuck out the back way and ran down the hall until we collapsed on the back porch, the lawn stretching out before us like the night.

Those who came before was inspired by Brittany erin's beautiful series, My 7 Broken Hearts. 

Those who came before | Part I

I remember you as one of the first things I really really wanted and ended up getting, if only for a week. You were my first lesson in how moments in our lives can be so fleeting, how cherishing them is the best way to honor them, to honor ourselves, and letting them go is the second best way.

I fell in love with writing sophomore year of high school, the same year we watched the news of 9/11 on TV in our creative writing class. Our teacher said we'd always remember where we were on that day, and I felt comforted knowing you would always remember me. She encouraged us to write about it. I wrote about you.

There aren't many ways our story was different from any other high school friendship-turned-romance-turned-friendship, other than my memory of it. It was what excited me about growing up. It wasn't love, but it was my first taste of that willingness to do anything to just sit next to one other person, that guttural need to breathe the same air. I'm supposed to look back now, say it was just teenage hormones, but I won't dismiss you as such. You were my first glimpse of what would come, of feelings that lay just below my skin.

I saw you a few years back. I had moved to the city you went after you graduated, and we sat on your living room floor outside Harvard Square. I pass that building on my way to work in the mornings now, on my way home in the afternoons. Back then I felt as though I were miles outside the city, but now I know how close we were to everything that backdrops my daily life. We were giddy with reunion, but I remember realizing how nothing would ever be the same. We were four years beyond the people we were when we'd last seen each other, trying to remember what that friendship felt like. We didn't see each other much after that, you moved on to a bigger city, but I still think of you some mornings, groggy with sleep, and I remember those cold mornings driving to school in my 1986 Mitsubishi pickup. I used to wake up a full half hour early, drive in the opposite direction of the school so I could pick you up and sit next to you for that much longer.

Those who came before was inspired by Brittany erin's beautiful series, My 7 Broken Hearts.