“I remember the first time I laid with you like this…”

His voice cut through the darkness and the muffled sounds of two people kissing.

My heart swelled with such force that it instantly became difficult to catch my next breath. In the blink of an eye, the entire world fell away and there was nothing else but those words. I could feel the sound of his words already being etched into my memory.

“I remember the first time…”

The ability to speak came back to me as my eyes searched for his. “You do?”

I watched, transfixed, as the muscles in his face relaxed and a smile sparked in his gaze.

“Of course I do. I remember the first time you let me kiss you. And I remember… this. God, I wanted this so badly… I was… so nervous…” his voice trailed off into his own memories of past anxieties.

My mind began to turn back, searching for the moment he remembered. It swept past the years and the children and the monotony of married life. It flipped quickly through the pages filled with shame from an unplanned pregnancy and my regret that I would never live The Fairytale. I trudged through the awkward months when we had teetered between friends and lovers and exes. Back, still further I went, before a painful breakup and an adolescent betrayal. Back I went, 11 years into the past… and I found myself singing along to Deana Carter beside him as he drove me to school in his old car.

And I remembered. I remembered how alive I felt sitting in the car beside him whenever we went somewhere together. I remembered the nights when my cheeks practically ached from smiling, which was all I could manage to do when he looked at me like that – beaming confidence and self assurance. I could feel the familiar pounding in my chest and fluttering in my stomach as I tried to guess what he might be thinking. I wanted so badly then to know what he might be feeling when he was with me.

“I don’t know how it happened, how we ended up here…” his voice snapped me back into the present, into the dark bedroom in our home where he was still smiling at me. The smile was now colored with something unexpected, an unmistakable mix of relief and gratitude.

In a rush, I felt the memories I’d just revisited changing. They suddenly became deeper, richer, fleshed out with a glimpse into what he had been feeling and thinking all those years ago.

“I remember…” he said again, and my whole body ached with the realization that he must have carried those thoughts with him through the following 11 years.

And he had them with him still – with us, here, in this quiet dark bedroom.

Happy Valentine’s Day baby. I remember, too.

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Posted in Love and Marriage Tagged: love, marriage, memories, valentine's day, valentines