Out of sight, out of mind.
I am … deleted.
It’s been a year and a day since the beginning of the end, and I am hurting. She, I’m quite confident, is not.
By all indications she has effectively deleted me from her browser history. The changes have been gradual, like an afterthought. I’m not sure why I mentioned that I noticed she deleted me from Waze when we were at the vet with Kiwi, but she played dumb – “No.. I did? I didn’t mean to, it must have been when I was playing with the settings”. Sure. Is that also what happened to our Messenger conversation, erased from existence? If you’re not deleting these things, who is?
I see that I’m also fully deleted from her Facebook history, too. Uh, I used someone’s account left open at work to take a peek-see, since I am blocked (Hey, I’m an curious opportunist, not a creepy stalker. Don’t judge me). Nearly 19 years, about 10 of them on Facebook, and only one photo of the two of us remains on her page – a photo in which I look to be about #220. Awesome, and thanks.
You know, it’s one thing to be replaced. It’s yet another to be deleted and utterly invisible. Gone.
I no longer exist in her world, past or present, and that just shatters my heart. If I wasn’t convinced (and I wasn’t) that our entire time spent together was a “waste” before, she solidifies it in her pushing me out and away. Not only do I find it impossible to do the same, I don’t want to. I don’t want to delete half my life. Love Bomb and I may have encountered some choppy waters over the years, but we shared so very much, we were the very best of friends, and we loved each other for a very, very long time. I, for one, don’t want to deny or forget any of that, even when it tears me apart.
Is it unreasonable that I’m still mourning? Is my lingering sadness irrational? I don’t think so. We divorced after almost 19 years, why in the world wouldn’t I be sad? A year is NOT that long.
The fact that she’s not sad, never seemed to be sad, never mourned or questioned her own motives, now THAT’S irrational. To be 52 years old and have never spent one solitary day since adolescence unattached in a relationship, THAT’S unreasonable.
As I drove to work this morning, I watched tiny late-spring flakes land on my windshield. There on the passenger side, I noticed smudge marks on the glass. Footprints. A full year later, and her footprints remain from where she’d prop her feet up on the dashboard. Apparently, it’s time to muck out the car 😬 … and I know that I’ll pause over that smudge. Unlike her, I hesitate to erase the past. Even the dirty parts.
But that’s not it. My three-minute commute also involved a Guns n’ Roses song that ushered in another cache of memories: “Swee-ee-eet chi-ii-ii-ii-ii-ild, chi-ii-ii-ii-ii-ild of mii-ee-eeeeine” … Once upon a time, I belted that tune out with Axl Rose and made Love Bomb laugh. I can’t hear that most songs and not think of her. It happens all the time, be it on the radio, a title sequence for a show, or a smudge on a window.
Let’s be clear, just because I am reminded of her does not mean that I want her back. No, sir. I tend to believe that the emotions I’m feeling are normal. It’s what she’s done that isn’t. It isn’t normal to file 19 years away as easily as stuffing a file into the far reaches of a cabinet and locking the drawer, never to be vulnerable in that connection ever again. I’m reminded of some terminology I used early in the separation: Bandwidth. She simply doesn’t have the bandwidth to deal with things in her life that are unsavory. She can’t deal with a break-up appropriately (and never has). She can’t deal with severing ties to a man who abused her, and with whom she maintains a dysfunctional relationship. She didn’t have the bandwidth to even consider trying to work through some of the kinks in our relationship. She files that uncomfortable stuff away because she just wants to “have fun”: her words – the desires of someone in her 50’s who doesn’t have the bandwidth to grow the fuck up.
MazieCakes 