I made a list of all the things I didn’t like about him: he chews with his mouth open, he’d neglect to close the bathroom door after taking a shit and then try to get intimate, his preferred sexual positions were awkward at best, he never had enough bite when playing with my breasts or kissing my neck, and so-on so-forth. I debated about whether or not to include his under-developed chest, skinny legs or large mole, the one just inches from his belly button, but decided that at that point I was just being petty.

I posted the list on my refrigerator, hoping that every time I thought of him I would look at it and remember that, at one point, I’d had no interest in him for these very reasons. What happened instead was that I would look at this list and think of all the things I wasn’t allowed to put on it: the sweet things, the beautiful things, the things that made me sick-sad. I thought of the way he’d let my hair down the first time we’d kissed – the way he’d pulled out each hairpin, the way he’d cradled my head in his hands as he lay me down – of that time he’d looked me in the eyes and told me I was beautiful, of the way we’d kept each other warm under the sheets when it had been so cold outside…

Even worse than that heavy nostalgia, though, was the knowledge that he most certainly did not have an equivalent list posted on his fridge.