Revisit

Weeks ago now I was flicking through papers on the desk in my office and I see all the articles I printed out for him to read and the letter I wrote. It looks like something's been spilt on it. Oh no, wait, it's tears ... Oh my heart, to think of my darling in pain is heart wrenching. I feel guilt and love at the same time and I want to run to him, to take him in my arms and nurse him better. But I can't.

A thousand images and motion pictures of us fly through my mind: our first dinner together and he snuck off to pay without me knowing, rolling around on the grass of the picnic area at Limoges airport taking pictures of each other, him standing next to my cat after riling her up, like 2 naughty school children, cradling his head on that last night, his square jawline on my lap, his clear blue eyes pink with tears.

Tonight I'm sorting through the junk in the office, clearing it out, when I find something. A long lost relic I'd forgotton all about.

I own a t-shirt press (being a designer) although I rarely use it these days. As I lifted it up to clean it, something fell out from between the plates. Some crushed magazine pages. Memories flash through my mind: Valentine's Day last year, he bought me a rose. I pressed it between the magazines and the plates of the press. And then forgot all about it. And here it was, more than a year later, dried and pressed to perfection, a moment in time, our time, preserved forever. I twisted in my fingers, stroked the petals whilst remembering that night. He'd made me dinner, this lovely corn fritata starter and thai curry. We'd laughed afterwards when I found out he'd bought it pre-packaged from M&S and pretended he'd made it, even going to the trouble of emptying the package into a wok and heating it that way to make it look all the more convincing. The memory made me smile. We had lots of lovely little moments like that.

But then I remember what else was happening around that time. I remember that all the lovely moments were overshadowed by this bigger thing. We didn't want the same things. I remember.

I'm not sad. Nostalgic definately, i've surprised myself by how well I've been feeling. Excited, optimistic, myself. But undeniably I miss parts of us, very much.