So much of the life I am throwing away does not fit comfortably in a trash bag. The dog bowl. Christmas decorations. My life. None of them will fit, perfectly. I have to mash and mangle them to get them to submit. But then again hasn’t that been the trouble? Trying to fit a round peg into a square hole?
It has been something I have been wrestling with for the last couple of weeks. Only yesterday did It occur to me that I was supposed to be moving sometime in the next 2 months and I had not lent a moment’s thought to the idea of packing. There I was, sitting in the same spot on the same couch as I had been a year ago when bits of my life began to crumble and fall, like a melting glacier.
Up until recently I had been living life as Ms. Haversham from the Dickens’ novel Great Expectations. A book I read in high school but only recently did it resonate with me. Finally, I was able to feel that woman’s pain. I could see through her eyes and understand why it was necessary to leave everything in its place. If you don’t acknowledge it then it didn’t happen.
For me, it was the hope that one day I would awaken to find that this had all been a bad dream; a nightmare to end all night terrors. It takes an effort to remain the same when everything is changing around you. It is above stress on the hierarchy of echoes in my brain.
Just the idea of putting these ideas on paper has scared me. It tugs at my still unprocessed feelings. As I write this I wish that my ex-fiancee would knock on the door, wanting to reconcile. Not to have things back the way they were, but better.
It’s been 365 days since she uttered the words. Even as I type this it is a surprise to me. I hadn’t realized that today is quite literally the anniversary of the day she told me she “can’t do this anymore”. It was a week to the day after her 30th birthday.
“I can’t do this anymore.”
It’s amazing how even without context I knew what she meant. I was hugging her at that moment, believe it or not. This had come after a week long argument/avoidance that stemmed from a television show of all things. I am not, for a moment, boiling our entire relationship down to this moment, I am simply illustrating the scene.
She said it rather quietly. It wasn’t screamed, cried, or anything. It was said with the tone and energy of someone who saw no other option. These are obviously just opinions of my own, but that’s how I heard it. I haven’t thought much about that day since then.
That is surprising to me because when it first happened I thought that would be the breaking point; a moment that would forever live in my brain on repeat. That has not quite been the case.
There have been plenty of other issues and obstacles to worry about since she changed our lives on that Sunday afternoon. I am surprised that moment has not played a larger role in my reflection, as of late, because it is certainly the catalyst that sent me on the journey I am on now.
I remember how my stomach dropped down to my shoes upon hearing the news. Something about the way she said it left no room to wiggle. There was no maybe. There was only, this. This. The air around us had changed in a matter of minutes and right before my eyes we went from together to not. A 13 year relationship that had started on Myspace of all places was now circling the drain.
We talked about it for a long time that day. I cried, she didn’t. We even watched a movie. So began the weirdest part of my life.