My memory is cruel
I’m queen of attention to details
Defending intentions if he fails
Between the Lines, Sara Barailles
I don’t know what to do with the stories.
All of my stories include him.
We spent a lifetime together.
A lifetime of stories.
The happy stories of holidays and celebrations. 27 years of birthdays, Christmases, weddings, births, parties and family reunions.
The heartbreaking stories of deaths of our grandparents, our dads and our babies. Saying goodbye to our pets.
The triumphs of buying our first home. Finally starting our careers after working those crappy frontline jobs we all start with. Paying off our student loans.
The scary-at-the-time-and-now-a-great-story events that are retold a hundred times, like when our car transmission died in the middle of the Rocky Mountains, or when I broke my ankle, or when the dog attacked a porcupine.
The stories that made for insider secrets and sayings that mean something only to the people there. “Stealth rock!” “Engagement car.”
If he had died, telling those stories would be acts of remembrance. Remembering the good times and the hard times that we made it through together.
But instead if I want to tell those stories I have to start with “my ex-husband and I” or “my then-husband” as if life partners just get traded in every few years. I can’t do it. These stories of my life have been marred, made grotesque, by his leaving.
I don’t know what my life is without these stories.
