Remember the Time

I didn't want to keep writing about him since he made it clear he didn't want me thinking about him anymore but Timehop reminded me that on this day, three years ago, Emmett came back into my life.

....

I hadn't heard from him in six months and a friend had invited me to stay with her Tokyo for a few weeks. Airfare was cheap and I hopped at the chance. I posted on Facebook that I was planning on being in Japan for 3 weeks; making plans with friends of mine teaching English there across the country. At this point, Emmett had left six months prior and I hadn't yet heard from him - and didn't know if I would.

And then suddenly, he was active on Facebook - which he hadn't been for the six months he'd been gone. He hadn't contacted me yet so I was upset. I updated my status to "Well, I guess that's settled." - a  slight at him, seeing as he was still alive and living his life and obviously couldn't care about me. He commented on my status that "Things tend to settle during flight." I ignored it. He was always kind of snarky and cheeky.

Then he sent me a message. A mutual friend had told him I was coming to Japan and, if I wasn't too busy, he was hoping I would come and stay with him; he'd love to see me again and show me where he lived. I was angry and apprehensive about it. How could you just turn up out of the blue and expect me to be ok? Expect this to be ok? I said, well, I supposed I did have some time unaccounted for that I could stay a few days. I reserved my final week in Japan to stay with him in a tiny mountain town called Yokote, four hours north of Tokyo.

......

I had spent the weekend drinking and laughing with friends in Osaka and Hiroshima. And on a dreary Sunday afternoon, I boarded a Shinkansen back to Osaka, then to Tokyo, and further on to a place I'd never heard of called Omagari, in Akita Prefecture, where Emmett said he would pick me up. It took 9 hours start to finish. Three trains and three climate changes and I was there. It was late and I'd taken my contact lens out on the train and put on my velour sweatpants, hair in a pony tail. I hadn't showered since we'd spent all night in a karaoke bar and I passed out on a friend's couch. But I was nervous and my keitai had died and now here I was with the train doors opening into this frigid climate.

Omagari.

My backpack on and giant rolling suitcase in one hand, I stepped out onto the platform. I looked up and I could see his silhouette looking down on me from the observation deck. I nervously got on one escalator and then another, heart beating out of my chest, fumbling with my rail pass for the gate agent as I saw him waiting patiently on the other side for me. He looked different, older; his face acne scarred by the climate change. Once I cleared the gate, we half hugged and he awkwardly sought out an elevator. We looked at each other stone faced, trying to hide our nervousness, and loaded my things into his Saab; an interesting choice of car for someone teaching English in Japan. Most of my friends drove tiny kei cars; cheap little aluminum boxes - but somehow, this suited him, suited his personality. He would have driven something like this in the States if he made enough, I suppose. Then again, he drove a Honda Civic when he was living in Ohio when I'd known him then. Maybe this was an upgrade.

He fumbled with the GPS on his phone, trying to figure out how to get back. He almost ran a red light and I yelled at him. We stopped at a diner for pancakes and coffee. (Well, I got pancakes. He just got soup.) And then, a short while later, we'd arrived at his apartment complex which was named Moulin Rouge - although far from the French landmark. I began to unpack my things: presents I'd brought for him like Burt's Bees lotion and Kraft Mac & Cheese powder. I told him I was going to take a shower. I washed all my parts and shaved from head to toe. I'd been waiting for this moment for months. I wanted everything to be perfect. To feel his kiss, his touch, his embrace again. I'd been waiting. And I emerged in my pajamas and we sat on his couch - on opposite sides of his couch - and talked about my journey.

And then, like two high schoolers, we were suddenly in a ferocious lip lock. Our glasses clinked together comically and we stopped and threw them off and continued to kiss, to ravage each other. I straddled him and let my wet hair envelope his pockmarked face. I kissed his soft lips as his mustache tickled underneath my nose and then he took me and threw me down onto the futon on the floor. He kissed my neck and took off my shirt and began to kiss my breasts, down my stomach, pulling down my pants which slid off my hips that were thin from being worn out waiting for him. I was naked and exposed and I just wanted what I'd been waiting so long for. He kissed my inner thighs.

I flipped him and mounted him and removed his shirt, undid his belt, unzipped his pants. I just couldn't wait and I took him into my mouth and he teased, moving his cock away from my lips. I flicked my tongue and he'd jerk himself back just out of reach, then I'd take him deep again until he just couldn't take it anymore. He cut to the chase, pulling me by my arms up to face him, kissing me passionately before he flipped me on to my back, and then entered me. And we fucked and fucked and made up for those past six months with every thrust and scratch and scrape and pulse and grip. We came together, just like we always had. And we fell asleep in each other's arms.

I woke up the next morning to his alarm going off for work and the first thing he did was spoon me from behind and kiss my shoulder. Then he got up and showered and I watched him get dressed for work, wishing that day could be my every day. He kissed me goodbye, told me there was soda in the fridge and a key for the locker for the bicycle if I wanted to go out, but he'd be back at noon. I woke up and made some eggs and uploaded pictures and watching some TV and then took a nap.

He woke me up by whispering in my ear that I probably shouldn't leave the door unlocked. I gasped.

.....

By the end of the week, I'd gotten so used to him that I wished I hadn't had to leave. But Emmett got dressed for work and we drove back to the train in minimal silence and I got my ticket and he hugged and kissed me swiftly even though I could hear him starting to choke up and I boarded my train back to Tokyo in tears behind my sunglasses.

And I cried all the way to the airport and in the airport and on the plane until I fell asleep because I knew that this was the man that I was supposed to love and spend the rest of my life with and I knew deep down somewhere that something was going to prevent it from happening.

.....

And it turns out that something was me.

L-O-V-E

Love is one of those strange emotions that has the ability to turn your entire world upside down. It is magical and painful at the same time. It can make you laugh, smile, cry and scream all at once. It can lift you up higher than the clouds and drop you to the deepest, darkest depths. I can honestly say I have been in love 5 times in my life, each time completely different than the last. Each love was completely unique in its own right; a kind of love that is adapted to the person that you are in love with. Its hard to say if its real or if its just lust or infatuation, but its real enough in the moment that the memory stays with you forever.

The first time I said "I Love You", I was 16 years old and it was my first serious boyfriend. We met at my friend Kim's sweet 16 party. I sat next to him and didn't really like him. And so, I ate his cake. He got upset and I laughed hysterically. A mutual friend gave him my screen name and we began chatting and hanging out at school. He sent me one of those AIM emoticon bunnies and I replied *wiggles nose... hops*. He began calling me bunny. Then we realized that we liked each other and shared our first kiss at a local amusement park over french fries while everyone else rode the ferris wheel. Then we became bf/gf - which caused some slight problems because I was supposed to go to the prom with someone else in his limo and this resulted in a very awkward "Date Swap" situation. The first time we exchanged I Love Yous was after he teased me in the mall about him checking out other girls and I got mad and walked about 20 ft ahead of him. He caught up with me on the escalator and told me not to get upset. I asked why and he whispered in my ear, "Because I think I'm in love with you." It was a fun and youthful kind of love. We were each others' firsts. But after high school, it was clear our paths were in completely opposite directions and so, the love fizzled out.

The second time I said I love you was with someone who I once believed to be my Soulmate. Our love came on quick, richly passionate, then exploded brightly and faded.

#3 was another quirky, silly kind of love. We met at a house party, but I had already apparently met him at a party before that. Anyway, we spent the end of the night talking and I accidentally used his sleeping friend as a pillow. He gave me his phone to put my number in it. He never called, so I was able to track down his screen name through a friend. We hung out a few times casually and shared a first kiss under covers in between tickles and giggles. I fell so hard and so fast for him within a month, but I was so afraid to say it first. We laid naked in my dorm room bed, his arms around me, as I tried to bait him to find out how he felt about me, to get him to say those three little words first. Eventually he did say it and our love was this vibrant, eye opening, mind expanding (literally, based on all the weird experimental drugs we used to do together) roller coaster adventure despite our long distance (he lived in MA where I went to school, but then I moved back to NY for good). But once again, there became a fork in the road and we went our separate ways - not to mention the long distance thing was especially hard to keep up when I was going to school/working and he wasn't doing either.

My fourth love was the most painful, dangerous, awful, wonderful, life changing love I ever experienced. I went to hell and back. It was a love that never should have been and one that it took me a very long time to get out of. I spent a lot of time in that relationship trying to get back the love that we had, to make him love me the way I loved him and spent a lot of time crying, heart wrenched and helpless in return. Sometimes I wonder if he ever really did love me at all. (Especially all the claims that he made about loving me once I finally did leave him.) It seems like they were just words to him, but truly he left my heart in shambles.

For so long, I worried that I would never be able to love again. I had been hurt so bad and I just didn't want to hurt anymore. I completely shut myself off from all possibility of love. Kept all my feelings and situations completely casual. And yet, in the midst of all that, I tried to have hope that I would find love again one day. I searched high and low, but that spark was never reignited by any of the suitors I tested.

And then, one day, seemingly by accident really, he came into my life.

Our relationship started off casual, another victim of distance and internet romance. Soon our conversations became impassioned, flirtatious, sensual, stimulating mentally and sexually. We finally met up one summer weekend and within moments of meeting, we kissed and it was like Christmas, New Years and Fourth of July all rolled into one. Whoa. What was this feeling? It was like nothing I'd ever felt before. Like our lips were meant for each others. Like two polar opposite magnets attracting. So tender and gentle and perfect. Something just clicked when we were together. All the time we spent together, all the moments we shared - It was just effortless. Every conversation we had, every laugh we shared, every smile we exchanged, I could feel myself falling for him almost immediately. But it was so quick, I must have just been mistaking this feeling, wasn't I? I tiptoed around saying it to him drunkenly one night and his reaction kind of reaffirmed that maybe I was moving too fast. But things were progressing at a steady rate and looked to get more serious....

And then, one day, just as quickly as he came, he had to leave.

My heart hurt worse than it had before; a little piece of it had been taken and transported 9000 miles away. The pain was deep, intense, cut like a knife, coupled with a severe depression set on by his absence and no communication. I cried every day. Why did this happen? Why was this amazing chance at love taken from me? I had been broken so badly and here was a beautiful chance for repair, so why was the rug pulled out from under me? This cruel twist of fate as I had moved and hoped to start my life over with a new job, a new city, a new life, a new love. 3 out of 4 just wasn't good enough for me. What was the point of all these great new experiences if I had no one to share them with? Why was love so painful?


Then, one day, after months of loneliness, we were finally reunited. I had been worried that it wouldn't be the same. That everything about our relationship had all been in my head. That I built this bond up so much that it was all just an illusion I had created for myself to make me feel better. But our first kiss after so long confirmed that I hadn't been wrong. It was an adorable, almost high school-ish kiss, and the sparks were still there and they were just as strong as ever. Delicate, amazing, passionate. I remember laying in bed one night and it just seemed like the perfect moment to say those words but I held back in case I had jumped the gun again. But when I looked into his eyes and saw him looking back at me in the same loving way, I could tell that the feeling was there. (Ours is a very difficult situation in which to say it and everyone knows once you say it, it just complicates things... as if a love that spans two continents and an ocean wouldn't complicate things enough.)

And then one day, we were back apart and as we were before.

Hopefully soon I will get the chance to tell him how I feel, in person, as I am kissing him and looking deep into his eyes just as that day, and have it reciprocated. I can't wait to add another chapter on to this amazing love story, one that we will continue to write for years to come.