We took the stairs.

He has a child now; Letters filled with mixed joys of parenthood drafted in the dark as he sits watching over his sleeping child. Infrequent missives composed in the dead of night. His attention split between monitoring their soft breathing and the task of writing. The mentions of lack of sleep and other challenges of new parenthood cannot mask the sheer joy of being a father. Reading, I smile standing on a grey and cold city street, that delight bleeds through the words, warm and clear like sunshine on my winter day and I remember that in the beginning. I fell in love with his words first.

We have written a novel's worth of words in last 4 years. Email chains forging digital bonds between us. He wrote the most beautiful message to me on a dating website. Blending confidence and charm making me curious and excited as the replies flew thick and fast. It was interesting, filled with humour, and flirty. His picture was a candid one, showcasing his smile and dark brown eyes. When I didn't respond, completely out of character, he sent another, and another and another. Until a year later I did.

Our first date lasted 8 hours. Nervously waiting for me at the train station he hoped that his faded jeans and grey sweatshirt were suitable, and wished he had brought a jacket because it might rain. At a wobbly outside metal table staying long after it was polite, we discussed all the things that you don't on a first date. His eyes lighting up behind metal-rimmed glasses. He spoke with relaxed enthusiasm and perfectly equal sincerity about politics, sexuality and how baffling he found Australian slang as a Canadian. I watched him talk, deliberating if this man was as good at kissing as conversation. Later on a street corner gelato place and sitting on a secluded soft leather couch, I discovered he approached physicality with the same enthusiasm as he did talking. His long talented fingers tracing over my blue cotton dress to tease with wicked skill, his responses a refreshing in their lack of pretense that was as joyous as it was unexpected. We fit flawlessly.

A faded plastic yellow sign blocking a motionless escalator read:

"Escalator broken. Do not use"

"They're stairs" He exclaimed.

But the sign was in our way, so we ventured off, finding another way that day. There is a pervasive narrative in society about relationships. You fall in love, you get engaged, then married and so on, Relationships progressing is considered meaningful. We called this the relationship escalator. Always Up, never taking a backwards step, never staying still. But what happens now that the escalator has broken down, or if you prefer stairs?

The way the city smells after it rains and the seasons changing from summer to autumn, parks littered with bright colours remind me of him. The time spent dodging from awning to awning as the leaves of autumn disappeared, and of the naked trees that reached their arms into the sky. It always seemed to be raining, and his cold fingers would entwine with mine, warming them, using the weather as an excuse to press close. There are ghosts all over the city in winter. Standing on a train platform. Long fingers buried in my blue hair, my cold hands snuck under his soft striped sweatshirt, our lips pressed feverishly together submerged in one another while surrounded by commuters. I walk down city streets slick and shiny from the rain and strains of Opening by Phillip Glass triggers a memory so strong - I stop dead on the street. I catch glimpses of tall men wearing stripes, and it makes my breath catch in my throat, for a brief second I am unsure if I would run to or from him, but it is never him. And it is never me when he sees blue hair on crowded streets. We saw ghosts.

It is autumn and raining, the air smells crisp from the rain and coming cold. Much has changed in three years. Yet, standing on the other side of the street in the first place we met he sees me. He smiles. Ghosts of the past now encounter our present incarnations - facing each other. He wraps his arms around me, his chin fits perfectly on the top of my head, and as the circle closes, we both relax. Sitting at a wobbly metal table, he gasps in delight at something I say, and I feel the hole in my heart heal over. He is still beautiful and funny and smart, and I still love him fiercely, and he loves me. It is different, we are different, we took the stairs, and we found each other again along the way. He is my ex-lover. He has a child now.