"I Am Always Remembering..."

We'd been acquainted with each other for just a couple of months. First, as online "friends" in that strange time when social media first began to insert itself into our lives, and then gradually we'd become something more to each other. But even from the first time he reached out to me, introducing himself as Chris Stone, I somehow knew he would change my life profoundly. When at last we spoke over the phone, I knew it was love I was feeling. Then when he shared his real name and after we'd met on that first date a couple of week later, my heart confirmed everything I realized I'd known from the first. 

It was on this night 18 years ago, after a several dates, and after me making him homemade chicken noodle soup when he had a cold, and after dozens of lovely lingering phone calls and nearly a hundred text messages, I spent my first evening with him in his "home." We talked and watched an episode of Charlie's Angels on television. I remember as we sat together on the love seat, he was so close to me that I could feel the warm of him radiating into the room. He had been gazing into my eyes in the most fascinating way when finally he asked if liked kissing.  I answered honestly that I didn't, and the dejected look on his face nearly broke my heart. And as I looked deeply in his eyes, and I said, "But I might learn to like it." And with that he smiled and leaned in towards me for what I still remember as my very first awkwardly passionate kiss. I'd never been kissed like that in the entirety of the 42 years I'd been alive at that point.

In an instant, in what seems like a forever ago, but also feels like yesterday, I finally knew why people kissed that way for I had kissed the beloved one for the very first time... and it awakened the passions which I didn't even know had been secretly yearning to break free from the depths of my heart for a lifetime. As I sat there pantsless (and how that came to be is far more comical and innocent than you might ever imagine), vulnerable, naïve and nervously afraid, little did I know or suspect that the awkward first kiss of those lips would seal the fate of, and condemn that same heart to another lifetime of longing and loneliness.

Tonight, 18 years since that fateful moment in my life, at 11:30 PM on the 11th day of October, as I sit here remembering, alone again, I can still vividly recall the sweetness of that first passion and the ache of restraining the precious desires of my heart while believing my days of loneliness were to soon meet their end. In four days time, I would gather the courage to tell him my sacred truth and reveal to him every precious desire of my heart. Afterall, my heart was already his forever... and it still is.

I am always remembering...

And my greatest fear is that I may not live long enough to forget.