You and I (Part 1)

Thursday, 26th of August 2021

I started writing this some weeks ago. What I was supposed to write that day was a fun article. Then I looked at some pictures and they took me back to a magical time of my life. That’s when I decided to write about love. The love I have lived to experience for 5 years and then there was no more. It might be again, we never know what the future holds, but for now it has ceased. 

I told this story so many times to whomever was willing to listen, yet I never got bored of telling it again. I write and write and it’s almost 2k words before I even finished, so I will need to post it in a few parts. 

We met… surprise, surprise… on the dance floor. The same night I mentioned getting really drunk with Tina, on Friday night at the salsa congress in London in 2016. He said he spotted me dancing and waited patiently for me to notice him too, but I was too busy dancing and when I do, I don’t look around, but give whoever I’m dancing with my full attention. He soon realised that he could wait all night, as I was snapped by a next dancer as soon as the previous dance was finished. After all, I showed up really late to the party, so I had a lot of catching up to do. 

He changed his tactic to actively looking for an opportunity to catch me for a dance and when he did… Well, that’s when the magic happened for me too. I was totally taken by his incredible musicality as well as playfulness. On top of that he smelled amazing! I didn’t hesitate to keep him for another dance and needless to say that we had many more dances that night and the night after and on Sunday night too. When he asked if I wanted to go outside for a smoke, I didn’t hesitate to say yes either. Who cares that I just quit smoking a couple of weeks ago? This was a new and exciting adventure happening right in front of my eyes and I wasn’t going to miss out on this! What he meant by smoke was not exactly the same as what I had in mind, but his way was so much fun and attracted many more fun people to our smoking corner. It was by far the best salsa congress I attended in my many years of salsa dancing. 

The pictures from this congress, taken on Monday morning, are still hanging on the walls of my house. I wish I could share them with you here, but my love is a very private person and he wouldn’t appreciate his pictures on social platforms of any kind. I respect this. Instead, above is a picture of Tina and I from Saturday night that weekend.

Smoking and dancing was all we did on Friday night. At some point we both went to dance with other people and lost sight of each other. I briefly told Tina about him, but I was so wasted that night that I doubted I would recognise him on Saturday. I didn’t, but my heart almost jumped out of my chest when I finally saw his face. Him and his mate were watching me dance, but when the song ended, someone else snapped me for a dance and I didn’t get to dance with him for a good few hours afterwards. When we finally did, we pretty much got glued to each other for the remainder of the weekend. 

As I mentioned in Tina’s article, after the party was over, we headed straight for breakfast together with him and his mate. We were like kids - playing with each other's feet under the table and laughing out loud when at some point he realised he was touching the leg of the table instead of mine! After breakfast we headed out for another smoke and walked to the back of the hotel. It was around 7am and it was very cold, so we came up with an idea that a hug should warm us up. Well, it did! More than we could imagine and when we heard the footsteps of someone approaching, we jumped away from each other as if we did something really bad. Sweet and innocent beginnings, hey? 

We walked back into the hotel and wandered aimlessly, just enjoying being around each other. Not sure how we ended up at the car park again, but at some point P moved closer and asked if he could kiss me. I smiled and asked why he needed to ask. Funny how we both had many previous experiences with other people, yet we both felt like it was our very first kiss again. Needless to say it was truly amazing. 

Slowly we walked back to the hotel and I was heading to my room, but didn’t really want to sleep yet. Or rather I didn’t want the magic to stop. 

‘You need to tell me to leave or else I will never go’ - he said as if he was reading my mind. 

Well, I was planning to say any of this. We took the lift upstairs, but instead of going to my room, where Tina was most likely fast asleep, we sat on the comfy chairs by the lifts, chatting and pranking people coming in and out of the lift. He was so much fun to be around and his imagination is off the scale! People were already getting up and heading for breakfast in their comfy clothes, while we didn’t have any sleep at all and many were confused why we were still dressed up. He would come up with all kinds of funny stories and really crack me up. 

To be continued...