31/01/2024 Wednesday Third Hour It’s extraordinary how a lover’s embrace stays with you. Even years on, when the love has faded into a distant memory, ceased to exist and simply become part of your story, the hug of an erstwhile lover is stored away in your mind as a vivid sensory memory. Everything about it will be saved and catalogued in your mind — their size in relation to yours, where they like to put their arms, how hard they squeeze and where the pressure is distributed, things like their smell, the shape of their body. Even years on, this person’s hug will remain with you as a tactile memory, one you don’t even know you have until you hug them again, which will evoke this startling, visceral familiarity with something you didn’t even consider that you might remember. You might not be able to tell everything about a person from the way they give you a hug, but once you truly know someone, you’re suddenly able to see their personality, their history, their quirks and emotions and identity and everything else that makes them who they are, all expressed concisely and with perfect eloquence through their embrace, unique and distinct as a fingerprint.

I spoke to my ex yesterday for the first time in nearly a year. They’re a good person. We ended on rocky terms at a difficult point in my life, nearly two years ago. We intended to stay friends, but every time we hung out together they would end up telling me that they were still in love with me and I would shut down and they would get mad and it would just spiral into a complete disaster, so we decided to take space. In August we briefly said hi to each other, but it was awkward, and I didn’t run into them for the next few months. Yesterday I ran into them for the first time since then and decided that it was time to extend an olive branch. We only talked for a minute before they had to go so we didn’t get a chance to catch up properly, but it was nice. And then I gave them a friendly hug, and it shook me to the core. I remembered EVERYTHING about the way they hug. EVERYTHING about that embrace was so vividly familiar to me in a way that I had no idea I even remembered. Even back when we were together I never realised this. I never noticed anything particular about their hug, it was always just a hug, normal style. And that’s the second thing about this particular type of memory: you don’t realise just how distinct a person’s hug is until you haven’t hugged them in a while.

My ex’s hugs always just registered to me as normal hugs; but now, nearly two years later, everything about that hug transported me back to that time when we were together. The way their face flashes with a sly, closed-lipped half smile before they go in to hug someone they’re fond of. Not only the way they rise up onto the balls of their feet to meet my height, but also the speed and the angle of their ascent. The way they throw their arms over my shoulders and press the side of their head against mine. The way they really give you a proper squeeze before letting go. None of these things inspires love in me anymore. I moved on from them a while ago. But the experience of that hug showed me how the memory of our love has stayed with me, like that of all my lovers past, and become part of who I am. It’s become another patch on the quilt of my life.

-A