Ah, day 40. The amount of time it took for a full inundation, and I had an inundated weekend. You would have thought my eyes were the cause of the flood. I couldn’t seem to keep it together. I fell apart at every juncture. I guess that is always the danger when you feel you have gotten stronger. J says just mark it up as a bad day, or a weekend in this case.
I finally went on the archaeological dig today. I decided it was finally time to dig myself out of the constantly accruing sphere of junk and items that were surrounding me on the sofa. I’ve needed to do it for weeks, but just couldn’t bring myself to. I knew that discomforting artifacts would be found. I guess deciding to do it today made me feel a bit stronger, even though I knew it would ultimately bring more tears, and it did. I dug out of the 40 million books I fortressed myself in with, and the miscellaneous scraps of paper with phone numbers, notes to myself, addresses, receipts and other information written on them. And the empty boxes that various items and books came packaged in. I could even have a friend or two over now to watch the game if I wanted to.
Going through it all, though, brought memories. Finding the sheet on which G laid out what bills I had due and how much right before she moved out. When we were sad but relieved, and thought that we were saving the relationship by living apart.
Then I found several of the books that I bought on those Saturday afternoon excursions to Borders, many computer books, some novels. They reminded me of how on some of those days, and some Sundays too, I would go out while she was still here in her pajamas, and hair all floppy, and sleep still in her eyes. I would go to the bookstore and then to Jersey Mike’s or some such place to pick us up sandwiches for lunch – hers always was Turkey with cheese, lettuce, oil and vinegar, and spices, never a tomato. Or even better, drop by the Publix to get deli-sliced cold cuts, Pastrami-encrusted turkey for her and deluxe ham for me, a loaf of bread and some Havarti or cheddar cheese and then back to the bat cave. I liked making those sandwiches, all toasty in the oven. Many times they were delivered to her on the same sofa that I cleaned up around today, as she sat zoning out to whatever late-Saturday-afternoon fare cable TV was offering up. I really enjoyed those weekend days. I rank those times among the most enjoyable and peaceful of the relationship. Today was not a weekend day like that, though. I found the books and they reminded me of those times, and I could smell the bread toasting and the cheese melting. I could for a moment think G was still in the living room with the TV on, floppy hair and all.
That’s not the nature of such archaeological digs though. When you’re digging up this stuff it means that the life that created the artifacts is over. Left here now only for the scientist to find. I wondered what artifacts I might now be leaving to tell the tale of this time in my life. Would a future scientist be able to tell how I spent even this weekend? Would they perhaps find hardwood floors with scattered tears? Would they find grass on the shoes and tell I took a walk to G’s and the park today? Is there some record of all of the times I lost my shit totally and completely this weekend?
Is my ghost slowly leaving my body and infesting the walls of this house, co-mingling with all of those other ghosts, the ones that keep me up this late, the ones that wake me in the morning with the smell of sandwiches toasting, of coffee in a pot that hasn’t been used in over 2 months?
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