It’s very seldom, if ever, that I think of my ex or recall vivid memories that take me back to a specific point in time.  Tonight I was laying in bed, listening to Enigma, when a particular set of songs came on and I fell into another time, another place, another moment with the girl that used to be me, and with a man whom I loved with every cell of my being.  The walls were white, the furniture a pine-y ash, the furniture set from my teen years from when I lived with my parents.  Our bed was on the same side of the room as the window and if I laid on my back and looked up, I could see the leaves of the many trees in the reserve outside, showing the golds and reds of Fall.

I had just made love to him, to this sound track.  His back was to me — our new charcoal gray comforter slipping off of his shoulder.  His breathing was deep and calm, focused and concentrated.  I was curled against him, breathing in the smell of his skin, so thankful he was finally in my arms after months of being apart.  I had never loved like this…in a way that consumed me so completely that my insides swirled into pools of fire, flames licking against the depths of my soul.  He had been distant in the days I had been there.  I had wondered if he regretted that I moved to California to join him.  That was the first time we made love since I had been there and, in that moment, I felt him again, I felt us again.  As I listened to the hauntingly beautiful music of Enigma, still stained with sex and sweat, I knew that moment would forever change me.  I knew I would never be the  same again.  I suddenly felt guarded and I didn’t know why.

My world began to crumble shortly thereafter, but I held on to that moment and those prior…the ones that made me fall for him to begin with. He never touched me the same way again. He never kissed me the same way again.  He never looked at me the same way again.  It was if the man I fell in love with, made tantric love to, and lost myself in so completely just vanished. One minute he was there, the next…only the physical shell.  I’ll never know what changed him, if he actually changed, or if the man I knew before was merely an illusion…an act.  I stayed with him, for years and years, through his adulterous affairs, his lies, his addiction to pornography, his fathering a child with another woman, and his unemotional distance…hoping, one day, the man I fell in love with would surface again.

Sex after that moment was just that…sex.  I often cried after, feeling that disconnect so strongly.  We came together…forced, on my part, but we weren’t spiritually in sync, as we were before.  We no longer moved fluidly, without effort.  I could no longer look into his eyes and feel the energy between us melding and flowing like a stream.  His hands didn’t search my body, he no longer penetrated my soul, or sought to please me. I was merely a tool for his release.  He fucked me.  My soulmate became just another man and I simply couldn’t comprehend, wrap my mind around it, or understand.  It just didn’t make sense.  How did we go from that…to…this?

For years I thought back to that moment.  Enigma…those songs in particular…took me back to that moment.  It ached.  I yearned. I longed.  I held on for so long, unable to believe that that connection just simply disappeared and took my hopes and dreams with it.  It’s been years now, and I hear those songs, and I simply relax.  But tonight,  I visited that place again…unwillingly, unknowingly.  I just drifted there, softly, watching us make love beneath the afternoon sun, our tight, young bodies moving to the rhythm of the music, our eyes locked, our hands gripping.

I’ve never made love like that again.  Not with such fierce abandon, with no emotional restraint.  I’ve connected with my current husband on levels with depths of layer, but differently. I want so much to be able to lose myself so completely and trust, completely unguarded, with the intensity that I did as a young woman, but I think years and years of hurt calloused me a little bit. I can’t fully tap into that aspect of myself, no matter how hard I try.  I feel regret that I can’t simply let go and give my husband that experience.  I want so much to share that with him…but it escapes me.

The difference now is that this love is grown-up, mature, safe, and content.  There’s no mind games or pulling away for attention, just to see if he’ll chase me.  No cat and mouse.  I think part of my issue is that I’ve spent my entire life seeking approval from my Dad and my previous partners, so I was always longing…yearning…and the passion was heightened by my fear of rejection. With my current husband, it’s just open, honest, and truly…right.  He understands my past.  He understands that I’m still unfolding layers of myself, layers that I often didn’t know where there, exposing myself…being vulnerable.  I believe that someday I’ll be able to let go again, but that this time, it will be richer…deeper…stronger.

Until then, I’m haunted by the girl I used to be…by the feelings I once felt…by a past I have yet to out-run.