Posts tagged with "Bronwen"

Hugging Etiquette

She hugged me yes­ter­day. I thought I was over her, but maybe I’m still smit­ten. Physical con­tact does fun­ny things to the mind.

I don’t under­stand why girls are so into hug­ging. Often, I’ll go for a hand­shake, and as if it does­n’t take, they’ll lean in to hug after­ward. A girl once asked if she could hug me after I explained to her my pro­ce­dure for check­ing a cat before adop­tion. Figure that one out.

The fun­ny thing is that most girls aren’t very good hug­gers. They give limp hugs — more of a press­ing of the arms to the body — and it bugs the crap out of me. It’s like get­ting a soft hand­shake, also referred to as the “limp noo­dle”.

Bronwen’s an excep­tion. I always give and get a bear hug from her when I see her and when she leaves. Sometimes we fight for arm posi­tion­ing, because we both pre­fer to have the arms low­er than the oth­er. I like to have my arms around a girls’ waist, where­as she likes to have her arms sur­round­ed, so she feels pro­tect­ed.

The two Louise’s are/were also good at hug­ging. Nice and firm, with­out being too clingy. Maybe it’s a Louise thing.

It just makes me won­der; if girls are so into hug­ging, why aren’t they bet­ter at it?

Letting Go of Bronwen

Bronwen start­ed dat­ing anoth­er guy.

It’s fun­ny, my first reac­tion is to think anoth­er guy, as if we’re still dat­ing our­selves. I sup­pose our rela­tion­ship has nev­er been con­ven­tion­al, but that’s what makes it so spe­cial. We still spend our week­ends togeth­er. We still talk on the phone for hours with­out actu­al­ly talk­ing. We’re close enough that I’m com­plete­ly com­fort­able around her, enough for me to let my guard to go down.

It’s made me real­ize how pro­tec­tive I still am of her, how upset I’ll be if she gets hurt. I think of all the things I could have done bet­ter, and hope this guy can treat her bet­ter than I did.

I have all these mixed feel­ings about it though. I’m wor­ried that I may lose my friend, but I’m glad there’s some­one to make her hap­py. In the end, I know I can’t be self­ish. Letting go of her the first time was hard enough.

Doing it again does­n’t make it any eas­i­er.

Letter To An Ex-Girlfriend: Bronwen

I love you too much baby
For you to be with me
I love you too much baby
I got­ta set you free

—Shea Seger, I Love You Too Much

You were the clos­est I’ve ever come to per­fect in a girl­friend. In fact, you raised the bar. Now I know there are girls out there who are fun­ny, intel­li­gent, open-mind­ed, car­ing, sane, and I’ll always be look­ing for the same now.

Making love to you was fun because you’re so damn cute. I loved to look into your eyes, though I wish you’d be able to keep yours open.

In so many ways, we worked. My love of dark choco­late and your love of milk choco­late meant that we’d nev­er have a prob­lem fin­ish­ing off an assort­ed box. You’re so easy-going, while I’m so uptight. All the lit­tle things, like puz­zle pieces made of clay.

Even though it’s been months since we’ve bro­ken up, our video is still by far the most played item on my iTunes playlist. It’s such a beat­i­ful mem­o­ry, and I’ll always cher­ish it.

I still miss those notes you used to leave me about what you did dur­ing the day and when you’d be back. Those times we’d take the bus, and you’d rest your head on my shoul­der. Those times we’d wres­tle and fall asleep in a pile, right there, from exhaus­tion.

I miss all these things, but the fact is that it did­n’t feel right, and it would­n’t be fair to either of us to keep going. You deserve to be with some­one bet­ter. Someone who will ful­ly appre­ci­ate you and the things you do.

I know I nev­er said it in our rela­tion­ship, but I loved you.

And I still do.

The Letter To An Ex-Girlfriend series

  1. Introduction
  2. Ashley
  3. Michele
  4. Christie
  5. Jackie
  6. Louise
  7. Bronwen

The Many Faces of Bronwen

Bronwen is my orig­i­nal muse. We hap­pened to meet short­ly after I got my SLR cam­era, and ever since, she’s my pri­ma­ry mod­el when doing pho­to­graph­ic tests and exper­i­ments.

These were tak­en over the course of about a year. From before we start­ed dat­ing to passed the break-up.

Every angle cap­tures a dif­fer­ent side of some­one.

Thumbnail: Dark and brooding
Thumbnail: The hoodie attitude.
Thumbnail: Against the wall
Thumbnail: Classy cleavage
Thumbnail: Cute mode
Thumbnail: Emo.
Thumbnail: The trustworthy companion look.
Thumbnail: The innocent look
Thumbnail: Bronwen revolution.
Thumbnail: The porcelain doll look.
Thumbnail: The cozy look.
Thumbnail: Trusting

Looking back on these reminds me of how much I miss it when she had red hair, which she dyed for me (but did­n’t like to admit it). Too bad I can’t con­vince her now to do it again.

The Beginning To The End

This was the week­end we first met.

The first time we kissed. The first time we held each oth­er. The first time we slept with arms entwined, bod­ies bare and buried under the cov­ers.

It was before the snow melt­ed on the verge of spring, when I would open the win­dows to dry the sweat from our skin.

I put on a song that made me cry, because she said that it turned her on, and with the tears welling up in my lids, we stared into each oth­ers’ eyes.

From the moment we touched, there was nev­er any awk­ward­ness. Only a com­plete trust, a com­fort­ing famil­iar­i­ty, as if we’d known each oth­er for years, a gen­tle nuz­zle of the nose from my baby-faced doll.

And now it’s over.

Someone who saw this video sent me this very touch­ing let­ter about her sto­ry of rape and recov­ery.