Put it in a Box and Bury It

For the past month, I've woken with a smile on my face.  The nightmares about my husband leaving have finally subsided, and so have the sweet dreams of "before."  I don't scan crowds for his face anymore, and I'm not choking back an "I love you" at the end of our rare, abrupt conversations.  I am gradually removing all traces of my marriage from my life, and in the end I'll be left with a beautifully clean slate.  I can fill my days and my future with whatever I choose, and I adore that freedom.



Still, I'm not quite finished sweeping the past away.  Even as I type I am painfully aware that my husband's sweater is crumpled in the bottom of a box in the corner.  Two of his shirts are stuffed away in my closet. Until recently, my pillow smelled like him.  Everywhere I turn I see his ghost.

I think I hide it well.

Yesterday I was chatting with a distant relative at a baby shower, and after the standard, polite questions that everyone seems to ask about my time in Germany, she smiles at me and says, "So where are you and your husband stationed now?"

How is it possible that after two months I am still running into people who don't know that he left me?  How is it possible that I still can't find the words to explain it?  My face fell when I heard her question.  My heart stuttered the way it always does when someone reminds me that I've been damaged. I blurted out, "He's in New York," then hesitated. "But I'm...I'm home now."  I looked away.

Great Aunt Something Or Other became suddenly engrossed in her appetizers, and I scuttled away to do anything I could think of on the other side of the room.  I am no better prepared to answer questions about the divorce now than I was two months ago when people stopped to ask why I was sobbing in a Walmart parking lot.  It still hurts to admit, even indirectly, that I lost a huge gamble with fate.  It hurts to say I wasn't wanted.  But I hold my head high, square my shoulders, and face the world with all the pride I can muster.  After all, I have done nothing to warrant shame.  I poured my soul into keeping the love alive between my husband and I, and that was a brave, beautiful thing, despite the way our story ended.

So, with every awkward explanation to a well-meaning relative, and each article of his clothing that I weed from my closet, I purge my life of a little more pain.  I am collecting all the residue from our four years together, putting it in a box, and burying it deep inside my heart in a place where it can't hurt me.  One day I'll unearth that box.  I'll open it slowly and say goodbye to each item one last time.  Then I'll place it on a pyre and send the whole collection up in a whirl of sparks and ash.

But that day isn't today.  Today I'm pulling those shirts from my closet and crumpling them into the box with my husband's sweater.  And then, in an hour or so, my best friends and I will be covering the outside of 801 Stanford Lane in Christmas lights.  And tomorrow, I'll wake with another smile, wear my favorite dress to work, and come home to this incredible clan.  They never fail to chase the ghosts away.