The Moment That Didn’t Make Us

Isn’t it mysterious how time ushers us from a place familiar and present to blurry and distant? A close reality only becomes a memory branded into our minds. Impossible to recreate but ever-morphing, reshaped, and altered. Details of us shift and are lost over time, despite my wanting to keep them as close as possible.

It’s those moments that make us. The ones we don’t always realize at the time, but that linger with us and are resurfaced when a similar circumstance provokes it. Yet it can never be experienced the same way or recreated.

The one I think of is when he and I met. Truly met. We’d been together many times before, but the last time was the first time we wanted to share everything about ourselves. Our romances, needs, and what we desired in bed. But we couldn’t. Because I couldn’t. It would break the palpable forbiddance and a spark we both couldn’t deny. And it would mean defying our guilt for selfish pleasure that likely wouldn’t amount to anything anyway. We would fade—but the guilt wouldn’t. So, in the end, there was no point. We didn’t explore that next chapter, even if it was short lived.

Then he left—felt like he vanished—and my vivid memories began to evaporate. I forgot what he looked like—except his smile, because it was charming. And his light green eyes, because I fell into their depth. Otherwise, we parted for good.

Now these pieces are slipping from me as new memories and moments are built in front of them. The only thing consistent is the feeling I have when I think about it. Nothing can take from that. What I knew for sure. That with him it was electric. With him, it was real. With him, I felt alive.