An Englishman in New England

Belle put up a great post a little while back, in which she reminisced about past loves, lovers and, erm, loving in her own inimitable style. I think the thing that struck me about it was the way she referred to these memories as 'sketches' of people, because in my mind, that's exactly what they are, and that's when you know that you really know someone.

They're little snatches and snippets of your life with someone that tell you way more about them than a date, an interview, or a feverish hookup followed by an awkward breakfast the next morning complete with promises of calling you later. In my mind, these sketches aren't in color, most of the time they aren't even moving - they are just pictures that are attached with more meaning than any other person in the world could possibly fathom.

I think I speak about this because I recently deleted all my ex-girlfriend's emails to me - now that M is my wife, I felt like I didn't need to hold on to them any more; it felt wrong to have them. My ex (A) and I emailed a lot, and I kept every single one after I dumped her from well over 8,000 miles away (yeah, yeah, because I'm a big brave man, okay?).

I didn't want to look at them for the longest time, but I remember when I finally cracked that folder open, there lay an entire relationship, perfectly preserved, from its' very early courting stages to its' stumbling, awkward end over 9 months later. Each message carried with it its' own little sketch of A in my mind - they were a look, a tilt of the head, or a particular blemish that used to be so familiar.

I find it kind of hard to picture what she looks like now, something which I wouldn't have believed when we split. In the movie French Kiss, Kevin Kline beautifully describes how you feel like you'll never get over someone you've loved, but you wake up one day, and you can't remember what their chin looked like, and a few weeks later, you forget about that thing they used to do with their eyebrows. Soon after that, you're confused about how tall they were, and can't quite recall that thing they said to you once that made you marvel at how they thought. Pretty soon, they're gone, replaced by only a vague feeling, or spark of recognition at their name.

I guess the gist of all this is that by deleting those emails, I wanted to clear out the inbox of my mind, because I need the room for as many of M's sketches as I can fit in there.