A Journal of sorts

On Decluttering

Doing all this for a man who will likely not marry you is insanity. I feel the need to say that marriage is not the end goal; a meaningful, loving relationship where two partners are committed to each other forever, just happens to fit that understanding for me. It also happens to include a baby.

“Starter widower girlfriend” were certainly the words that played in my mind as I perched on an ancient chair and watched as you cleared your wardrobe of relics of your previous life. We have been together two years and I am living your pangs of initial pain. Writing this now, I realise it was ruth in your friend’s eyes as I sat, young and (attempted) enigmatic woman next to you.

Our problem is not only that you are a widower, but you are a midlife widower, and I am at the beginning of my life in many ways. You said it best, “In some ways, your life is pretty straightforward: graduate, marry, have children.” And in many ways, well, in all ways, you have already done that. Your person has just happened to leave this earthly plane, and you are scrambling. And I, yes, in some ways simple, cannot guarantee the man that I will end up with or what he will and won’t do. In a way getting you now, you are your end product. What things look like with you is pretty clear, your body though ageing to aged, is experienced, a practiced motor-synchronicity that translates to an explosive sex life, a stamina hard fought for and won, and values which match mine. It is this chasm of life experience that we pretend does not exist under the guise of my deep understanding of the nature of others. And yet here we are, not simple, and my deep knowledge failing to let me loose of this relationship which is filled with pitfalls.

Helping a man change …or in this case declutter his life when he has yet to agree to a life with you: rookie mistake… that I walk into eyes wide shut. Wider shut still when you kept that shirt for “sentimental reasons”. Squeezed tight when you bought out that baby’s waistcoat and shared the story behind it.

Sympathy, confusion, the all-knowing stare of an older woman, also your best friend, as we play “house” in your kitchen. A kitchen she has been to more times than I, and could probably tell me where every kitchenware is housed. You make my tea wrong. I say nothing, the interloper amongst us now not only me but the hidden error. I toy with the mug, the mug I brought in to have something of me here. The kitchen is unchanged, its inhabitants unchanged, except me, now birthing an emotional manifestation. I stand, surreptitiously empty the mug under the guise of adding cold water. I do not know where to find the tea bags to remake it. I cannot ask. I leave the mug 1/8 filled with water by the kettle.

Forget it, except I can’t. I don’t.