I go back there often

 How lucky am I to be loved by you?

We met in the balmy summer of 2012. I turned 21 that summer- the summer I met you and I knew my life would never be the same. I was a keen young woman, looking for adventure in Madrid, knowing that I had to go to Paris to study for a bit. My friend recommended that I reach out to you as I knew no one in Madrid besides the person's couch I was crashing on and the front desk worker of the hostels I would switch in and out of. 

I remember walking down the halls of the Prado and Reina Sofia together. I distinctly remember the look in your eyes as you explained some of your favorite paintings. I remember the tamber of your voice. And all I yearned for was time with you. And I got time. I got those few weeks that summer of 2012 in Madrid with you. 

When I left you at the end of that balmy summer, there was turmoil within me. Leaving you felt like I had to leave a part of something bigger behind, a part that I didn't quite seem to know, but felt. Leaving you felt like losing me, and I cried on the entire train ride back to Paris to catch my flight back to the United States. 

And that's where I left you, on the stairs of Atocha station, my heart breaking for something I only knew existed. We tried to keep the light on for a few months, but time and distance worked their magic. We kept in touch here and there, connected you with my friends visiting Madrid, my sister, other passerbys until finally, I went back 10 years later. 

I saw you. A decade created more life within us. It created roots, and I knew a piece of you knew we were rooted and intertwined. I remember being so nervous to see you. What would you think of me ten years later? Were you excited to see me? Would it be the same? 

You had just gotten out of a long-distance relationship. But I remember feeling your arms behind me, your familiar smile, and the way Spanish rolls off your tongue. I never thought that my time in Madrid would be filled with your touch and nights of endless kissing. But one thing I knew was that I would have to leave again. Our last night together was filled with drunken lovemaking and exploration. My heart felt like it was going to explode. You walked me back to my apartment the next morning, knowing that I had to let go of your hand the moment we got there. 

But after getting to know your kiss, I wasn't able to forget it, nor did I want to. Forgetting you felt like a crime, and going back to you made me remember that balmy summer of 2012. I told you how I felt, that I didn't want to leave. I wanted to take a piece of you with me. But you didn't and that was ok. 

Alas, I returned in the summer of 2023, knowing that we probably would have drunken nights of kissing, making love, and staring into each other. I remember asking you if you were seeing anyone. You told me that it was harder to forget me. 

You may not be the love that ends it all for me, but you are and forever will be one of the biggest loves of my life. I was 21 when I fell in love with you and now at 32, falling more in love with you from thousands of miles away after we decided that we wanted to try to see this through. It was my last night in Madrid before I headed back to Chicago. We were having dinner, we had talked about this throughout the week: you a bit more cynical, me a dreamer. But I knew that we wanted the same dream although we didn't and still don't quite know how to get there or if we ever will. 

Loving you has been one of the easiest things I have ever done in my life. I know staying will be the challenge. But we made a choice- a decision to try, a decision to see where this love could take us. I honestly never thought I would be here. That I'd be sitting on an airplane back from a work trip, missing my partner who I know is fast asleep in his home in Madrid. I never thought that this time, when I left Madrid, we would willingly leave our hearts with each other, that I would leave my partner to the streets of the city that I fell in love with without me to hold in his arms. Strings of texts, bursts of calls, and a bed without each other are what we are left with. But I exist here with the fullest heart, memories of our beautiful days together, and hopeful and thankful to know that love lives here. Knowing that there will be more flights to catch, more days of wishing I was somewhere I can not be in that moment, but with a very full heart because there is no one else in the world I would rather choose to love than you. 

So, yes, I go back to that balmy summer of 2012. I go back there often.