I’ve never written anything while sitting in a coffee shop, mainly because I don’t drink coffee, but also due to my inability to keep my composure while putting any of my thoughts to paper.

It’s crazy, the things you’ll miss about a person. You’d think, being raised in the hyper-sexual culture that is the twenty-tens, the thing people would miss most is the sex. One glance at the top Apps for all smartphones and you’d find all the evidence you’d need to prove that thesis correct. So yes, having someone whom you feel comfortable being naked around is something I miss. I want to think I’m above that base-level, the driving forces of human instinct, but I’m just another human. And there’s nothing wrong with wanting sex, right? It’s a natural part of life, and it’s a super fun natural part of life, so why do I feel this guilt? I guess I let that Catholic school teaching dig in deeper than I thought. But yes, at some point throughout the day sex will cross my mind, and linger there in the forefront until I can either repress the urge, or something happens to jolt my other emotions back into place, dominating my everything.

So, I miss sex. I miss the rush of blood as the kissing starts, slowly building until it unleashes as a frenzied, uncontrolled, mad rush to see who can consume more of whom first. It’s a drug, and more feels like it won’t be enough. Our hands balance out the insanity that is our faces, and I know I can lose myself in you, because your hands are still in mine…

I miss laughing as we take off our clothes, shirts flying across the room and socks somehow getting lost in between the sheets. How long did we both spend doing our hair in the morning? It’s probably over a third of our lives, using the magic of combs and straighteners and moose to tame the beasts who call our domes home. Haircuts every-other month and a first-name basis with the local Sally Beauty Supply, all in hopes of feeling pride in something as silly as our hair. And it suddenly didn’t matter when we were together. We tossed and turned and rocked and rolled until cowlicks came out and pony tails were a must. I miss that, feeling like I wanted to show off my best features so you could be proud of me and remembering that I can drop it all at any time and you’d look at me the same.

I miss the feeling of another person’s skin against mine.  It always drove me wild, how some parts of you were cold but the same parts of me were warm, and we’d explore every inch until a map was etched into our heads. It was rough, but gentle. It was wild, but nothing could feel safer. It was magic, but my Harry Potter hardcover box set, complete with replica wands for everyone who went with Harry to the Ministry to save Sirius, was still locked safely on the bottom shelf of my bookcase. How else could you explain the fact that we both knew the other was smiling, even when we couldn’t see each others faces? It’s how I know my letter from Hogwarts has just been lost in the muggle mail for 10 years, or how you know exactly when I need a hug and for how long (you never let go first, thank you). I call that shit magic, or if I’m trying to save myself a letter, love.

I miss the way I didn’t rush to get dressed after we finished, because I felt fine never being clothed again so long as we never had to leave that bed. I had to see myself naked plenty in my life, because mirrors are a thing, and while some days I can feel confident, I think I’m not alone when I say most days I’m feeling less than enthusiastic. But your eyes? They didn’t blink, aside from when you have to naturally blink (and I watched your face enough to know if you were blinking more than normal, I’m sorry, that sounds creepy, but trust me, you had a super interesting face). You looked at me like I was a double scope of mint chocolate chip ice cream on a record-breakingly humid day in mid-August. And you looked at me like that even when we were done. When we were buying groceries so I could cook you dinner, or when we waited at the airport to pick up your cousins from New York, or when I didn’t get that new job at the mall, or when I screamed my head off, sobbing like an insane person, when I found out my Dad cheated on my Mom, or when you first looked at my upper arms and thighs and stomach in the light and I tried to quickly cover everything up while muttering some excuses and you grabbed my hand and stopped me and you made an obvious effort to not blink…you still looked at me like you wanted me.

I regret a lot of things. I regret not getting into bitcoin when it was just starting up. I regret going to college for a degree in Accounting when I hate all things business. I regret not upgrading my popcorn to a large bucket at the movies last week, and using my savings to purchase an indoor training bike I have yet to assemble, and for that time I yelled at Chef Robert Irvine to use the secret ingredient peanuts to make a peanut crusted tilapia with a peanut hummus and he did just that and lost his elimination match on The Next Iron Chef. I have regrets, more than I can count, but I don’t miss those days. I don’t miss wasted money or my years in college. I don’t miss watching Food Network with friends or that savory, salty popcorn I totally should have ponied up an extra $1.50 for. I don’t miss those things, because they are still here, inside of me, as moments I can revisit any time I choose. I can regret the choices I’ve made and wish things had played out significantly different (I’m so sorry Chef Robert Irvine, you will always be my Iron Chef), but I don’t miss them. They were moments, and they happened, and that’s life.

But you? I made the monstrously huge mistake of choosing to make you my life. So you can’t become another part of my life, something to reflect on, good or bad. I knew my mistake, every step taken towards that mistake, but I still made them.

I don’t regret you.

I can never regret you.

I miss you.