I heard once that it takes, on average, two years to get over someone you loved but their energy will reside within you for up to seven. Though quantifiable, I also consider that debatable because love definitely isn’t quantifiable but also how do you know whose energy is in you? I don’t even have my own in me when I have to get up and leave for work before sunrise every day. What I do know, though, is that we hold a piece of each person who left a mark on us when they entered our life.

This came to me as I was driving back from one of our satellite offices, AC on and the radio turned up; sitting at a red light, my rearview mirror jiggles. There’s nothing wrong with it and I don’t need a work order. It’s from the bass on my radio, which one of my buddies when I worked at the ski shop messed with the night I gave him a ride up to the mountain. I remember him sitting in the passenger seat, complaining about being hungry (he was never full) and flipping through the settings on my dashboard display. I caught him out of the corner of my eye and suspicious as always, asked what he was doing. He replied he was making the car college-kid-cool, whatever that means, and he could change it back if I wanted but he was sure I’d like it booming. I rolled my eyes and a few weeks later sniped at him that my car still sounded like an apartment party. He said once again that he’d show me how to change it back but I was too lazy to bother. That was a year and a half ago. I never bothered trying to go through the screen and change it. Whenever I’m not on autopilot, I really listen to the music and think of him.

The guys I have been involved with over the last… the amount of years all impacted me in some way or another. My Spotify is probably one-third musical tastes of guys from my past. Electro from one, dubstep from another, a little bit of country mixed in. The first guy I ever loved, that I understood this is love in the way of what it’s like to feel on fire, shared an interest in some of the same literature as me. We bonded a fair amount over that, all due to a book on his desk which he mentioned, time and time again, he never managed to finish. I enrolled in a class on that topic at his recommendation and six months after he had walked out of my life, I read it cover to cover. It was a captivating and strangling tale all at the same time, very much like the story of him and me. I found wonder in the fact that while I had finished it when he didn’t, his prophecy had come true. He’d said I would understand after I read it and I did. I knew exactly what he had meant that gray afternoon. But I also knew our version of the story had ironically stopped at the point where he had placed the novel down, dusty in a box someplace.

I learned from the guy who left me to serve our country not to take someone for granted. I was slow to decide if I really wanted to be with him when he was much surer about me. He was always there, I thought until he wasn’t. I’d taken him for granted, never agreeing to plans, pushing his offers to spend time together to another weekend because I was tired or work was busy. I believed there would be more time and as much as I said I wanted to be with him, I wanted these dreams someday of a safe place in the mountains to raise two brats and teach them of lacrosse which we loved so much, it wasn’t enough and one day, he was just gone. I don’t blame him. I wasn’t in the greatest place and neither was he; it was bad timing. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize how much I cared until post facto. Losing him was hard and losing those faraway dreams was harder. But hearing from him out of the blue one day and shattering everything was the hardest. I drive through the area we went on our first date when I go to work and sometimes when it’s warm and sunny, just right, I can look out the window and be sitting next to him in the car in my little red dress again and see those beautiful blue eyes that matched his shirt, remember how I made fun of him for wearing boat shoes, although I would have much rather had a pair on too. He’s also the only person I’ve ever known that liked Andes mints and I try not to look at them when I walk through the store.

Slowly, I came around to camo; begrudgingly would be the best way to put it. I was head over heels for that country boy with a lax stick, which he’d only put down to pick up a gun or a fishing rod. He’d tease me that his knives were bigger than mine, but at least I’d learned how to use a lighter by then. I’d glare back, remind him that one day when he was stuck in the woods with a cut and no antibiotic cream, he’d wish he’d been nicer to me because I know what plants will substitute. Mostly he taught me that things can change in a day. We were fine and then we weren’t, like clockwork, every couple weeks. I never learned to like orange like he did but I liked his wild hair and faraway eyes and how faraway the idea of us working out and being happy someday was. I wanted so badly for him to take me along hunting or fishing, to see this world outside of my own, something I hadn’t really felt before. He said I couldn’t sit still or stay quiet long enough because trying to use the excuse that I’d faint at all the blood wouldn’t work. Mostly I think he wanted to avoid any (probable) accidents.

My previous relationship left me with a lot of questions. Who am I really? What do I do if parents don’t approve of me? What if they do but I don’t really jell with them…? He did teach me how I deserve to be treated, though, to go out and enjoy myself, try new things. I would never have known I liked raw oysters if he hadn’t ordered us a plate. He drew me out of my shell, encouraged me to be daring and reach past a comfortable point, imagined for me all of the things I could be. He would sometimes roll his eyes at the outfits I chose for a night at the bar but never quit trying to get me into sundresses, especially ones that would match his bowtie. I could learn to be preppy, just like I could learn to stop being so sarcastic all the time. Mostly he told me I could go without makeup, that my curls weren’t necessarily a bad thing, and that lax pinnies are sometimes—always, I’d correct him—acceptable to wear in public.

I'm terrible about deleting old photos, long after relationships have ended. I still have ones from the first date, and also formal, with the guy who broke my heart at the end of college. We haven't spoken in more than a year since we broke up in the ugliest way possible and I would be thrilled if we lived on opposite sides of the world. Yet I look at our youthful, smiling faces when we didn't really know each other yet and for some reason, I hold onto that. I still have the mix CD another ex made me, too. No interest in him either but it's nice for long car rides; I guess I don't really associate it with him. It's simply a leftover artifact, like the scar on my foot from the last guy I dated and a run-in with a revolving door.