I don’t know where to start with this, “The Moment I Fell In Love” exercise, so it may well be a surprise.

Well, I know it doesn’t sound right, and I know it won’t make sense. I doubt it was via  I.M. but you see, a special familiarity is formed when you message someone until past six in the morning and only stop because you have no choice. After all it was past six in the morning.

I suppose it could have been that day, well night, had I have let it happen that way. Instead somehow I think it happened twice.

We met over the internet, the way a modern love story would. We talked for a while, it was so familiar. I remember, just a little, the journey to the train station, the brief slightly out of breath rush texting and trying to beat my way to the station before the train came in. It was raining, as it always does in London. I remember waiting by the little bike shed by the station, anxious nervous, not really knowing who or what to expect. I remember being told to look for a long umbrella and black coat, and that was it. I had no expectations, I didn’t really know who I was waiting for and somehow I knew. The man with the umbrella, the smile and somehow I knew it was him. The world fell away and this strangers face suddenly became every conversation we had ever had, I knew it was him. I didn’t know who or what I was waiting for, I walked their with no expectations just nervous excitement. This strange man with dark hair and a sweet smile had become everything we had shared, the conversations, the laughing and joking, just it became him.

It is those two seconds perhaps in that smile and me making the connections that it was him, those two seconds letting the world fall into place, I started to fall in love, with him.

It was perhaps that same day, well evening by then that I can say that was the moment. I had spent most of that date itching desperate for him to just kiss me, the connection the flirting it was all so solid. He was nervous and somehow I knew he wasn’t going to make the move, I was too tense and too curious that I couldn’t wait longer. I did it, I kissed him, it was while he was mid sentence, and I caved. It was then in that moment perhaps, I didn’t know it then at the time.  But all I knew was I didn’t want to run, with every first kiss so far I had wanted to run and it had been a disaster and I would beat myself up for not running, this time I just didn’t want to run away. I wanted to stay, and ever since I have never been able to walk away, no matter how bad it gets, it has gotten better. That first kiss is the moment I fell in love.