...it just wasn't my box!
H and I spent the entire week, Memorial Day included, in the hot dusty garage of our other home. That garage has served as our storage unit, catch all, out of sight of out mind spot, for the past 10 years. When we purchased our new home last fall we were in the throes of separation. Ignoring the garage, I packed the household items as fast as I could and left to get that distance between H and me and the lies and pain.
The boxes of our old life, the stuff we shoved away, along with the hurt and pain sat. Ignored a little longer until we were compelled to go through it and decide what needed to be done.
With only one week off work for H, we needed to work fast. A tricky task with the heat and the fact that we hadn't been in some of those boxes for 15 years.
I've ignored that mess all this time for two reasons; First, I moved into that home two weeks after a very traumatic miscarriage. That one, a son, all formed and beautiful. If that wasn't difficult enough, the second reason I turned my back on that space, was because in those boxes were pictures of H's life. Many of them would be very triggery for me on the heels of the past few years. I knew there would be pictures of naked women that we would find. Pictures that would bring with it all the shame and anger that was there when that lifestyle and those desires were alive and strong.
H also spent several years on assignment with the Navy stationed in Sicily. If you haven't ever been to Europe (and I hadn't), the social climate there is much more accepting of nudity. One of the places H visited was entirely dedicated to one particular piece of male anatomy. H secured a whole book of pictures from that spot. It undid me the first time I saw 14 years ago when he returned from that trip. I knew we'd run across that and stir up all those emotions as well.
When we drove up to the townhouse Monday morning, before getting out of the car, H offered a word of prayer. He knew the home itself was triggery, the job ahead of us was going to be very rough for me. We needed that heavenly help.
Difficult as the week was, we had few bumps and few impatient words. It was surprising, for both of us, really, was how well we managed it. H and I have never worked well around the house together. Put heat and dirt and shame in the mix and it was sure to have ugly eruptions to deal with on top of the workload. Looking back now, I'm very grateful for that prayer offered at the beginning of the week. There is no doubt in my mind it was answered more times that we could have anticipated. We managed to get all of the porn shredded. Anything that wasn't uplifting or wouldn't bless our new home was tossed. All of it, without a lot of conflict. All of that five minutes short of our deadline.
Where the snag happened, was with all the cards and letters we found as we sorted out boxed up years of life. Letters written by me to H.
I'd forgotten about all those letters to H.
I'd forgotten about all the pain, all the pleas for love and attention. I'd forgotten what a jerk my husband was and how he ignored me. I'd forgotten that he'd refused to allow me to have more children after our son was born. I'd forgotten about all the feelings I put into those letters trying to reach out to him and make sense of all the cheating (before we called this addiction). I'd forgotten I felt so unwanted.
What was worse, and so painfully difficult for me to work through was the realization that I had really forgotten me. A young woman, in love with a man, who was too caught up in himself to notice her, want her, or care about her. I'd been put in a box and packed away with all the other stuff that doesn't matter enough to find a place inside to be watched over, kept clean and included in what matters most in life.
As I read through the letters and the cards, the memories and emotions flooded over me. The tears came. The anger came. Anger at H. Anger at myself. Why did I stay so long? What was I thinking? How could I not see the lack of caring? Who would put their self through something like this year after year, letter after letter, ignored and never answered as they were, and stay as long as I did?
I was mad at that younger me. I was furious with that younger H for hurting her and ignoring her.
I wanted to run and couldn't. I wanted to hit H. I wanted to throw things. There wasn't time for a tantrum. We had to get through those boxes. The house needs to be sold. The time was now -- no putting off any longer. I had to face this once and for all.
The dusty dirty sorting days are behind me as I sit here today. The boxes are in the garage across town --- only not so many of them this time. They wait for another week off when we will haul them here to our new house and our new life.
I didn't realize how much of me was buried in those boxes. I didn't realize how much of my life I put in a closet in my mind, pretending it didn't happen, or just refusing to look in that space any more. It was painful to open that door and look at it again. It shocked me. The tears hurt. My head hurt crying it all out. Every time we ran across one of those envelopes, the pain and tears flooded out stronger and more forceful than the envelope before. I cried for the me now in 2014 and for the me then in 1987, or 88 or 89. After a while I noticed the letters stop showing up and I begin to realize that girl quit too. She quit hoping and caring and she just existed. Going through the day because she was too afraid to leave or change or kick him out.
When that box is finally here, I plan to take all those letters. put them in order, read the whole story one more time -- all the way through. Then with a nice lunch, and a box of matches, H and I will take the letters up to a park where we can sit at a campfire and burn that part of our life away. I'll give that younger me a big hug, thank her for trying so hard and for believing, especially when it seemed impossible to do so.
And then -- I will move on.
Today I am giving myself permission to grieve for her just a little while longer.
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