All boxed up

I had a few Christmas things to put away (I know, it should have been done a long time ago) and I came across the “wedding” box.  The saved invitations, programs, vows, guest list, cards all tucked away in one neat little box.  It really hit me then, that this was a life that was no longer mine.  No more could I say we were high school sweethearts who triumphed over all the nay-sayers and the people who wanted nothing more than for us to fail.  No more would I wear my veil around the house when I vaccumed, just because felt good and fun and familiar.  The family we built that started with that box…all disappeared in the blink of an eye. 

I pulled everything out…handling each item tenderly, as though it was made of glass, and would shatter any moment.  Each piece of paper, each flower, held so gently, afraid they would vanish from my hands reminding me that my life as I knew it, no longer exsists.

Memories of our first apartment with our second hand furniture came flooding back.   Suddenly, like an old black and white film, the last 20 years of my life played out before me.  How we met and the hurt that lingers knowing the person who introduced us is no longer here on earth, his proposal, our weekend road trips to nowhere, Saturday mornings in bed reading the newspaper to each other, our private jokes, the hugs that lasted too long and made us late for work, the loss of our babies, our triumphs, the births of our amazing children and how our world changed after their arrivals, the after supper dances in the kitchen when we held each other  with everything we had, the year we bought each other the same anniversary card.  The pain of knowing that isn`t my life anymore. The loss of friends who have decided that I am not so very interesting without him.  All of it, every detail, suddenly quite vivid in my mind.

I sometimes wish I could hate him for what he has done.  But I can’t.  The reasons he left were not dramatic, not because he found someone else and not because we didn’t have a normal, amazing life together.  I think that is what hurts the most.  If there was something, anything at all, that could make sense of this for me, for our kids, I would be able to focus.  There isn’t. 

I read and re-read the carefully folded paper that said everything we felt.  I held in my hands.  Remembering the vows and promises we made that day to each other, never thinking that we wouldn’t hold each other to those words.   If I think too much I am sure to drive myself crazy.

I sat for a while and mourned the loss of my best friend, my partner, our dreams and all the history we share.  What can you do with 20 years of love, trust and dreams?  You box it up neatly and store it in the back of the cupboard, keeping it just far enough out of reach, but close enough to know it’s there.  Someday I won`t need that box, but for right now I think I will keep it right where it is.