until there is nothing left

It's been almost two months and I'm still mad at him.

I'm mad at him for turning my life upside down.

I'm mad at him for forcing me to start over.

I'm mad at him for not caring and moving on so quickly.

I'm mad at him for throwing it all away, like it was trash, like it meant absolutely nothing.

I'm mad at the constant daily reminders that trigger my memories of him, of us.

I'm trying to remove him from my life, but I swear, he's like everywhere...  It's like that damn cockroach that won't die.

I'm trying, though.  Old soccer t-shirts were donated to Goodwill; books were sold to the half price bookstore down the street.  The framed pictures were put away in a box and stashed in the storage unit where I won't have to think about them.  The purple flowers and vase that I never told him I hated (because it was one of his few decorative contributions to the apartment) are still next to the fireplace, waiting to be replaced.  The bathroom is empty like when we first moved in; it no longer has the turtle picture and I need to replace the bathmats since he has (had?) a matching set at his apartment.  The hardest was to take down the "curtain divider" separating the rooms.  We spent so much time putting this up together when we first moved into "our apartment".  He surprised me by finishing it up when I was at my second week of work.  I remember the endless trips we made to Bed, Bath, Beyond and Target three years ago, compromising on the random knick knacks we bought, making the apartment our first home together.

But there were/are few things I didn't know what to do with; I can't throw them away, but I don't want them in my home either.  What about his favorite striped button down shirt that he asked me to get the ink out of?  Or the purple v-neck that he lived in this past spring, that he decided to leave here for "next time" he was visiting?  And the stuffed white seal from his childhood that he was keeping here so his nephew wouldn't destroy it?  Or the little wooden frogs he brought me back from Mexico a million years ago?  The beautiful watch he and his mom bought me for my 27th birthday?  The picture book he made me for our first anniversary?  For the time being, they are back in TX, sitting in a box in a friend's extra bedroom closet.

In addition to all the tangible, our virtual life together was also deleted.  My facebook pictures have been cut down by half.  The album of us me in Paris is both hysterical and depressing.  It looks like I went by myself and ate lots of pastries and croissants.  All the digital photos from undergrad and grad school were transferred to a hard drive that I don't have access to so I'm not tempted to torture myself.  I have hundreds and hundreds of emails I don't know what to do with, so they are just sitting in my inbox.

Though I went through most drawers and boxes and files, there are still little things that I keep coming across.  I renamed the router to my initials, not his (yes, sounds stupid and minor, but I see the name scroll by every time I open my laptop).  Yesterday, I came across a random mismatched dress sock that accidentally ended up in my drawer.  I keep finding post-it notes of to-do lists with his illegible handwriting scrawled across.

I want it to stop hurting.

I want to hear from him.  But I don't.

I want to know if he misses me, if he still ever thinks about me.

I want my life to go "back to normal" (whatever that means now).

I want him back, but not this new him who I don't even recognize, I want the person I knew before. The one who did anything and everything to make me happy, who could make me laugh so hard my eyes would squint shut and my cheeks would hurt.  I want my best friend back.


"since there's no more you and me,
it's time i let you go so i can be free.
and live my life how it should be.
no matter how hard it is,
i'll be fine without you, yes i will"