Entry Eight, Guy Four: Mr Big

This next post is one I have thought long and hard about skipping. It was my most meaningful relationship. It changed who I was, who I could have been, and turned me into who I am now. More than anything has ever shaped my life, he did. Good, bad, worse, it happened and I can't skip it.

It's one of those relationships where you sit for hours and wonder if, going back, you would still do the same things, or would you just walk away. It's one of those questions I will never have the answer to.

What I am about to post is jumbled; it's a small stream of thoughts and memories. It barely touches the surface of what we were, what I thought we were anyway. It is a work in progress, the story of Mr Big. And, while in life he's gone, the story that was us is forever playing my head.

I still get a painful feeling, a gut-punching pain, when someone talks about him, when I think of him with someone other than me. A new big spoon at his back. Someone wiping tears away, cooking him dinner. Wearing his sweater. The sweater I made him buy.

I still have moleskines with our grocery lists, our cat's adoption papers, his shirt in my drawer. And, while I've been seeing other people, people who are better at holding my hand, buying me secret gifts, sending me mix tapes and not making my cry, there will always be a part of me who wonders what life would be like if he'd never asked me that question; if I hadn't froze; if I had jumped into that bath tub with him.

I used to keep my eyes open and watch his face while he kissed me. I still remember how he looked at me when he loved me. I remember the first time he said it, where we were, where we'd been, what I was wearing, the knowledge that he was going to say it, seeing it all day, so excited for it to come out.

I've had better sex, but I've never had a better kiss than his.