Remembering the Way We Were

This evening I was inadvertently reminded of an incident between Mr. Intellectual and I. The first month after I moved out of the hometown and off to the University town was difficult on both of us. Mr. Intellectual and I burned up the phone lines with daily calls and in depth conversations. We basically continued our relationship like it had been while we lived in the same area- with nightly calls to discuss our days and everything under the sun from politics to academia for hours on end.

At the end of the month when the phone bill arrived at his parent’s house his father was less than pleased with us. The telephone company had screwed up and the long-distance plan we thought had been put in place and mistakenly not been activated. The bill was close to $800! I wasn’t there to witness the fireworks, but at one point Mr. Intellectual’s father tried to institute the rule of only speaking together once a week. MI shot back in complete contempt and anger, “Why don’t you try talking to your wife only once a week!”

I think it was in that moment that his father realized just how much I meant to his son and how serious our relationship really was. He backed down pretty quickly on the one call a week policy. Remembering this incident made me smile today. We were so crazy about each other and we didn’t care about anyone else. I can remember the passion we shared for each other back then. I’ve never loved someone as much as I loved him. Now the memories of the good times, while they make me smile, are bittersweet. I miss the innocence I had, the complete trust and openness with another human being. I wasn’t jaded with men and overly suspicious or cautious. I wish I could be that person again, but something tells me it’s going to take quite some time and an extraordinary man to coax that out of me again.