Tucked Away In My Heart - Memories

Memories...unbidden - like a forbidden thought...unexpected - like hot flushes...uninvited - like an ex-boyfriend…

I'm on a plane, sipping on hot tea with a dash of lemon, when I stop midway a sip - I’m back in Barista. The door opens and my eyes lock with another mischievous pair. I look the other way coz i've just drawn in my breath...I'm actually here. A thought crosses my mind - Should I Be? and I push it away. Is Nonu thinking the same too? I can see his confusion...he- one who claimed to not allow anyone else to speak - is just as quiet. He's trying to take in the enormity of us standing next to each other. A voice on the phone and a picture on the comp is suddenly standing next to me in the flesh - all 6 feet of him dressed in delicious white and blue...The ride to his place in the cab - hesitant excitement. He holds my hand - at the pretext of showing me the shape of the city, for heavens' sake...in today's day and world :) - and I shiver. I'm apprehensive. And looking forward to spending time with him. He nudges me...and I jump. I'm very ticklish :). We still can't get over the fact that I'm here. We make small banal talk. What was it? I can't remember it now. All to soon we're at his place...

...I've come to realize that when memories hold you by the hand and pull you onto a path stepped on before, it's best to give in to the pull and go along. Coz if we resist it, the lash of thoughts just comes on much MUCH stronger. Like this morning when my thoughts defied my control and went back to him. It felt good to relax and think about him. I think I went a little berserk earlier coz I didn't know how to deal with something I’d never dealt with before. To dare to talk and act the way I did, knowing the feeling was mutual and then to have it end so abruptly without as much as an if-you-please was too much for me to handle. And I could either go through life hating us both for what happened and that which didn't or I can savor the feeling and cherish the moments we spent. We both awakened something in the other that we both had let sleep for too long a time. And we both haven't been able to handle it together...and now we're both trying to let it go it in our own peculiar ways. Perhaps he already has, and with every passing day I am too.

In the meanwhile, I’ve figured out it isn't worth suppressing what I feel. And so, beginning today, I've allowed myself the luxury of remembering. I've been thinking of him in fits and starts all day...Like a flash this morning - every vivid detail, every whispered sigh, every gentle instruction...and every urgent one too...

Oh, memories...unbidden, yet so delicious.