Day 32: Puzzle

From an early age, I enjoyed building puzzles. The first puzzle I ever put together was a giant floor board that took up several feet of space and depicted the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It was only 25 pieces, each bigger than two of my petite pre-school hands. For days straight, I spread the pieces out over the living room floor. When I'd finally pieced it together I covered it in a black silky cape that was left over from Halloween one year and reused for daily dress-up. I called to my brother and mother to see what I'd done and they pretended to be thrilled when I whisked the cape away like a magician.

After the giant puzzle, I graduated to a 100 piece puzzle of normal size, also of the Ninja Turtles riding in a van with Master Splinter looking on as they shoved slices of pizza into their mouths. The pepperonis and sausages danced in the air as the van went airborne over a bump.

When I was seven or close to it, my brother received a Ghostbusters puzzle for Christmas one year. It was 1,000 pieces and painted with the anti-ghost logo on a black background. The hundreds of black pieces were enough to make my brother abandon the project before he'd begun.  I pieced the entire thing together, then, after seeing someone on one of my favorite Nickelodeon shows, Salute Your Shorts, piece together a puzzle upside down, I turned the Ghostbusters puzzle face down and rebuilt it a second time.

The following Christmas, my parents gave me a 500 piece puzzle with Earl, Fran, Robbie, Charlene, Grandma, and the baby from Dinosaurs, a Jim Henson creation from the early nineties. I built and rebuilt that puzzle more times than I can recall. By then, I'd created a system for building puzzles-- I'd start with the border, then break the remaining pieces into piles by color, then piece the puzzle together in chunks until the sections interlocked. Just after my father broke his back, he spent the majority of his days in bed, barely able to roll over to get up for the bathroom. One afternoon, my mother left me home alone with my father to take my brother back-to-school shopping. I sat at the dining room table trying to piece together the Dinosaurs puzzle for the dozenth time to take my mind away from every whisper of the wind which I imagined to be an intruder coming to attack me and cart my ten-year-old body to a dark basement across town.

At 16, I spent time in a mental health center where we weren't allowed anything that could be a detriment to our physical or mental health (except of course cafeteria food).  They removed my hood-strings and belt, provided plastic utensils for eating, locked my personal belongings in an off-limits storage area, wouldn't allow me to read the books I'd brought about Edgar Allan Poe or Sylvia Plath (okay, so maybe they weren't the best choices), and would only allow us to create crafts under strict supervision. I spent hours sitting on the window seat in my room, staring out at the gravely ledge, wondering how an orange peel had made it among the rocks on the other side of the double-paned glass. I was told that to escape this miserable institution I'd have to show progress in social interactions with the other residents. The facility for teenagers had been too over-crowded, so I'd been put with adults. My floor mates were mostly elderly, a few were in their forties.

I ventured to the "game room" one night in an attempt to appease the nurses that patrolled the rooms every fifteen minutes. The common area was completely empty. At the far end someone had stacked a pile of games. At the bottom of the pile was a 1,000 piece puzzle of people in a restaurant with a black background. A nurse tried to discourage me from building it, "There's pieces missing," she said, but I ignored her and set myself up at the long table outside of the game room. The table was at the end of a long corridor, past rows of closed doors to patients' rooms.

I began, as usual, by mapping out the large border. Then, rather than separating the pieces into piles, I would pick up a single piece, match it up with the picture on the box and place it down within the border where it belonged. Every nurse came by to say, "Wow, I've never seen someone build a puzzle like that." I ignored them completely.

A few hours in, the fire alarm for the building went off. The nurses began running from one end of the unit to the other while the patients wandered confused out of their rooms. We were on tight security-- only level threes were allowed day passes or time out to smoke on the ground floor just beyond the exit door and even then they had to be back within a certain time frame.  I was a level one (the lowest level one could be) for keeping my belt in my bedside drawer over night. I woke up to find the belt missing in the morning. When I asked about it, the nurses refused to give me a straight answer.

Not knowing what to do when the fire alarm went off, the nurses herded all of the patients toward the fire exit door, which happened to be directly behind the table I was building my puzzle on. Maybe they thought being close to the exit, somewhere near the eighth floor of a hospital, would be enough to save us in the event of a real fire. Patients wearing hospital gowns that didn't close, evening dresses, and sweat pants crowded around the table, fascinated by my project. I continued piecing the puzzle together, ignoring the alarm, the gathering crowd, the comments, the staring. Eventually, the fire alarm was shut off and everyone slowly wandered back to their rooms or the TV area for evening snack time. An older woman in a wheelchair who went by Babs stayed behind to tell me that I needed to get out, that I was too beautiful to be in such an ugly place. I hoped the nurses were taking note of the fact that someone was talking to me, surely that would count for being social.

I built the entire puzzle in just a few hours that night. The nurse had been right, it was missing a few pieces, but a surprisingly small fraction of the 1,000 total. When I'd finished, I folded it neatly and replaced it in the box and returned it to the bottom of the pile beneath the outdated board games.

I didn't work on a puzzle again until I was in graduate school. The library on the college campus had set up a puzzle with hot air balloons floating in a blue sky on one of the long common tables. They propped up a sign that said, "Take a study break and de-stress with a puzzle." The simple sign was all the invitation I needed to begin working on the blue sky that everyone before me had left aside.

One of the biggest adjustments to being single was having so much free time. Without having to be a taxi driver, personal chef, or fair-weather companion to my husband, and on vacation from work, I searched for ways to fill the time. I went to a local craft store (some things never change) to look for a project and walked by a display of puzzles. I chose the one pictured above and emptied the pieces on my kitchen table. I quickly remembered how addictive puzzle-building is for me and built the entire 1,000 piece puzzle in two days.  I left it on my table for a week (eating alone every night had freed up plenty of extra space) then finally took it apart and boxed it back up. Now, I can afford another puzzle and will not need to rebuild the same one repeatedly as I did for years as a child. I will always find another when the need to study these jigsaw pieces of cardboard for the sake of temporarily shutting down my restless thoughts arises.

Day 31: Air Purifier

One would think that after my husband spent thirteen months in a war zone in the middle of the desert without running water, electricity, or any of the other amenities we take for granted that he would be accustomed to dust. When he returned home he was suddenly hyper-sensitive to the almost invisible particles. He wouldn't drink from a glass of water that had been left out too long because it was "too dusty."  The South in the summertime was not the place to be for avoiding airborne particles.

We bought a black car while we lived in Georgia. Throughout the summer, which lasted from March until October, my car would be covered in a thick film of yellow pollen that would cling to my fingers and clothes each time I reached for the car door.  The housing we lived in was probably built when the base first opened during World War I. He was convinced that mold was seeping out of our central air system and spent just about every waking moment blowing his nose. The sound of his nose being blown resembled a trumpet or an elephant.

In an attempt to eliminate the safari sounds, I purchased the small air purifier pictured above. We kept it running in the bedroom. The constant whir helped to block out the ringing in my ears that started a few months after I moved to Georgia and never stopped. The recycled air was also cooler, which kept my husband happy. It seemed to make a difference in the air quality, even if it was just psychological. 

The air purifier made the move back to Massachusetts, but has since just taken up space in the corner of the room where all the weights formerly reigned. It's time to purify my home of this unnecessary object.

Day 30: Plastic Containers

When I was shopping for household items before moving out with my husband, I was hoping to find a nice set of ceramic canisters to hold flour, sugar, and coffee. I couldn't find anything that seemed worth the expense and instead settled on these simple plastic containers.

Once in Georgia, I was thankful to have the sealed containers to keep out the cockroaches that frequented our kitchen. Three inches, fat, dark brown with wriggling antennas used to find their way, they showed up everywhere despite our best efforts to eradicate them. At first, I'd run into another room and hope they'd just find a hole to crawl into somewhere. Then we bought a Swiffer that we used solely for killing bugs. I'd reach it out as far as I could hold the green handle steady and slam it down. I'd leave the dead roach under the cloth top for my husband to clean when he came home from work. As with anything that becomes habitual, I grew accustomed to the killing and looked forward to seeing them sprint up the walls so I could reach for the Swiffer and charge like a cartoon character breaking down a castle door. Their bodies would explode leaving behind spots of dark brown with a distinct acrid stench. I became skilled at catching their filmy wings on the spindles of the Swiffer pad. The carcass would dangle from the corner as I lifted it toward the trash barrel. Sometimes a leg would get left behind.

For Christmas our first year in Georgia, my mother-in-law bought us a set of canisters patterned with raised white lattice and bubbly purple grapes. Just before she sent them my husband and I had had a conversation about how the Irish wear their heritage in the form of shamrocks and leprechauns, but the Italians didn't have a defining symbol. He suggested meatballs or grapes. I always wondered if they conspired together to send the grape adorned canisters as a slight to my ethnicity. Regardless, they looked much better than the plastic containers lining our counter space. I held onto these thinking I'd find a second use for them. They even made the move back to Massachusetts and got shoved into the back of a cabinet in my kitchen. It's been about five years since I've used them; I think it's safe to say the only way they will be repurposed is in someone else's home.

Day 29: Bike Helmet

After working at a major hospital in Boston for a year, my husband was offered a position as a bike cop--a job the security company he worked for created solely for him. They sent him to a week long course in aggressive bike riding. Even though he hadn't been on a bike since childhood, he was a natural at stunt driving. He was told he would need a bike helmet, so he purchased the white one pictured to the left. The foam inserts are still ensconced in the unopened plastic bag-- he never even bothered to fit it to his head, let alone wear it during the bike class or after when he became a bike security guard.

He learned to take tight corners at excessive speeds, ride up and down stairs, jump over obstacles, anything you might imagine a city bike patrolman to encounter. His fearlessness served him well and he soon became a legend after a fellow security guard witnessed him in mid-chase and spread the story around the hospital. His friend told of how he came pedaling from around the corner in wild pursuit. When he caught up to the person he jumped off his bike to continue on foot to tackle and restrain. According to legend, the bike continued on in a steady path and neatly parked itself along a stone pole. 

Just before he was offered the position and sent to the defensive driving class, a friend of mine from my job at the Chevy dealership discovered that I had never learned to ride a bike and offered to give me the mountain bike that was collecting dust in her basement. We barely crammed it into the trunk of my Cobalt so I could take it home and clean it off. Once clean and reassembled it looked gigantic and intimidating to me. I had flashbacks to the time when I tried to learn to ride a bike at seven. My mother's best friend gave us her sixteen year old daughter's bike. I had to climb up onto the front steps to mount it. Without training wheels and unable to even dream of reaching the ground while stradeling the bike, I couldn't move it a foot without falling flat to the side.

My husband took my new-to-me bike on the training course and complained that it wasn't sophisticated enough for his needs. I pointed out the fact that it was meant for me, a first time learner, and not someone doing back flips over baby carriages. After his class, with new zest and knowledge, he came with me as I pushed the bike to an empty lot a mile from our house. After hours of attempts, I was able to ride in a straight line from one end of the lot to another. I wasn't yet ready for circles and shuddered at the thought of taking it to the sidewalk, so close to the street where I'd surely fall to my early death. 

So that I wouldn't have to get up at 5 AM everyday to drive him to work, he started riding my bike the mile to the train station and locking it up during the day.  I can't remember why he left the bike overnight-- it might have been that he went out drinking after work and spent the night sleeping at the hospital-- but the next day when he returned to the bike rack it had gone missing. For weeks after, I'd stare at the bike rack when I dropped him off or picked him up, hoping that it would suddenly return or that it'd been there all along.

He did buy me a new bike for my birthday that year, but I was reluctant to take it out alone and he never had time to go with me. Last summer, after he left, I decided it was finally time to learn. I pushed the bike to the empty school parking lot a block from my house and rode in circles for hours with a three year old on a tricycle. I returned to the lot until I'd built up enough confidence to ride out of the parking lot and onto the sidewalk. I took it out all through the summer, loving the feeling of the wind in my face as I pushed the pedals and proved you are never too old to learn and begin again.

Day 28: Picture Frame

From an early age I learned to hold onto clothes, toys, and books that I had outgrown. Yearly, my mother would tell my brother and I that we had to clean out the toy room-- our enclosed upstairs porch. I'd unearth toys that I hadn't played with all year and suddenly want to use them. Still, she'd pile them into black trash bags and I'd cry as we dragged them down the brown carpeted stairs to the front porch. To this day, every time I go to clean out my room and remove things from my parents house, my father warns, "Make sure you aren't throwing away anything you might want someday," and he tells the story of how years ago my mother asked him to clean out the attic and he threw away his uncle's letters home from World War II. He blames my mother and says he always regrets getting rid of them. It's no wonder I had trouble letting go-- who knows when I might need something in the future.

During one of our yearly cleanses, my mother was in a particularly defeated mood and kept complaining about all the "shit" my brother and I had. I was about six at the time and decided I would show my mother that I could clean up. I threw just about everything I owned in the giant black bag. Later that day my mother asked about the miniature plastic figures that I had and when I told her I'd put them in the trash she dragged my brother downstairs with her to frantically dig through the bag on the front lawn. I was told that I should hold on to them because "someday they'll be worth money." I thought that if these little one inch pieces of plastic with the chipped and faded paint could be worth money someday than anything could. Not only might I miss the items I was getting rid of, but they might be worth money someday. So began years of hording. My parents' attic is still filled with old stuffed animals and barbie dolls that I couldn't part with. I'm sure the plastic figures I tried to get rid of more than twenty years ago are still laying around somewhere also.

Sometimes my mother would find things in the attic and bring them down to my bedroom. Once, as a teenager, I said something about how the plastic painted eggs she'd left on my bureau had disrupted my obsessive compulsive order and she snapped, "Fine, I won't ever give you nice things any more." From then on I learned to accept her ancient offerings.

When I moved into my apartment in Massachusetts she came by with the frame pictured above. Oval shaped, dust covered, the pins that hold the back in place went missing years ago. Despite how I've tried to clean it, it still has a layer of grime and dust caked to it. "I thought you might like this," she said when she brought it to me.  "I don't think I'll be able to use it," I said. She suggested I use it for my wedding picture and made it clear she wouldn't be taking the frame back home with her. I kept it out of guilt. It's been collecting dust beneath a pile of boxes in my front entryway since she first brought it to me. I tried unsuccessfully to sell it at a yard sale and packed it with the other items that did not sell that I will be donating. Maybe it will end up in an antique shop somewhere, worth 25 cents someday. 

Day 27: Hats

When my husband and I had been together long enough that my sister-in-law knew stories of their childhood wouldn't scare me away, she told me of how he was born with a red birthmark on the top of his head that deepened and pulsated when he would cry. As soon as he was old enough to be mobile, he started covering his head with anything he could find-- kitchen pots and salad bowls-- until eventually someone started buying him hats.

Throughout life, he continued to wear hats anytime he wasn't in school. At our high school prom, he pulled his folded up Notre Dame hat out of his suit pocket and slipped it on while we sat together in the corner drinking coffee. The ripped and weathered bill and shamrock logo suited him perfectly. His girlfriend who was off dancing with someone else wouldn't have been pleased to see he'd worn it all night.

He'd buy one hat and wear it until the inside rim was sweat-stained and smelled from across the room.  Most of the hats were Notre Dame, not for the team, but for the fighting Irishman or shamrock logo. He owned a Guinness hat once with a bottle opener sewed onto the brim. For a while he wore scally caps-- a light green plaid one for the summer, and a grey wool one in winter. One morning as I pulled to the side of the road by the train he would ride to work, he realized he'd forgotten his hat and left the car in a fit of swears, slamming the door behind him. His hats were a part of his identity that he was not willing to part with.

He would receive hats from others for holidays and birthdays. The hats pictured above were all given as gifts, never worn, and thrown on top of the white cabinet with everything else that he didn't want and would leave behind when he left. Most of the hats above would have suited him in middle or high school, but were too immature, even for him, as an adult. He planned to give several of them away to friends who might like them, but he never did. I hadn't even realized they were in my home until I started cleaning everything out for 24 things. I am happy to add them to a donation drop box where they will be of use to someone else.

Day 26: Scented Candle

This blog is about to become so much more than twenty-four.

Substitute teachers were not called in to cover the half-day before Thanksgiving break, so I was surprised to see the phone number for the middle school come up on my caller ID slightly before ten o'clock on a Wednesday morning in 2009. I was still lazing around in bed and tried to muster up the most awake sounding hello I could manage when I picked up the phone. The principal was calling to offer me a long term sub assignment-- instead of waiting each morning by the phone for a call, I would show up every day and be in the same classroom. He kept referring to the class I would be covering as small group. My first indication that something was amiss was when I asked if he meant I would be subbing in a special education classroom and he would only repeat that it was small group. I asked if I should go to the school before Thanksgiving break to pick up lesson plans or books and he said I wouldn't have to worry about it, everything I needed would be in the class on Monday. It was still early enough in the year, and in my teaching career, that I was willing to do just about anything to increase my chances of having a full-time job, so I agreed without much consideration.

I showed up the Monday after Thanksgiving filled with enthusiasm and good intentions. In the main office, the secretary handed me my schedule and directed me to the classroom I would be teaching in indefinitely. I got there early to poke around and prepare myself for the day. I would find out later that the teacher I was replacing had decided teaching wasn't right for her, had given her two weeks notice, and left the day before Thanksgiving. As for the lesson plans I'd been promised, she left behind a narrow strip of paper, suitable for a shopping list, that said, "Kids can learn to distribute." and "Chapter 9 vocabulary." She hadn't left any lesson plans, student grades, student work samples, or any indication as to what she had taught the first three months of school. I didn't even have a class roster. When the students came in I walked around the room and had each write their name on a piece of paper. I asked what they had done for the first part of the year. In the MCAS reading class they had read the first nine chapters in a slim fiction book, the algebra class couldn't say with confidence what they had learned, my supportive help class claimed they just played games on the computer the whole period.  For the remainder of the day I followed students to their core classes to act as an inclusion teacher. As if I weren't unprepared already, I discovered the kids were telling the truth when they said they didn't have math books. For the remainder of my time in the classroom I spent nights writing up algebra problems-- thinking back to sixth and seventh grade when I'd learned to solve for x.

With limited classroom management experience, and having taken over in a less than ideal situation, I struggled to manage students' behavior and keep them engaged. I'd leave the middle school feeling exhausted only to swerve around traffic to arrive on time to my second job at a car dealership where I sat in an overcrowded box of a room with gray walls and exhaust fumes from the shop nearby. I was the receptionist, which meant I handled money and phone calls for he entire dealership-- sales, service, and parts. No matter what they were spending on, people felt they were being overcharged (rightfully so) and had no trouble voicing their frustrations to the quiet, worn down blonde working alone behind the counter. After work I'd come home and make dinner and lunch before settling down to write out and solve algebraic equations. I was awake well past midnight every night and could barely bring myself to get up in the morning.

To make my position more challenging, the team of teachers I was working with acted as if I didn't exist. They turned me away during our common planning time, never mentioned in advance what the students would be learning in any of their classes, never offered an answer key, lesson plan, or support system. I heard from another colleague that the school was searching for a certified teacher to take my place. I was never told directly, but suspicion said that I wouldn't be returning after winter break. After being treated like a shadow the entire month I was in their classes, I was shocked when the other teachers handed me a gift bag the day before the break.

Inside the bag was a white pen with puffy feathers and snowman at the top and the scented candle pictured above. The pen was something I might have used in seventh grade and I was allergic to the scent emanating from the unlit candle.  Despite the fact that I knew I would never use the candle, I kept it in the original bag, wrapped up in the original tissue paper in the closet filled with Christmas ornaments. As I was emptying out the cabinet recently, the candle resurfaced and I wondered why I had held onto it in the first place. It's been four years since the team English teacher handed me the red snowman gift bag-- why hadn't I just given it away?

I was never alerted by the principal that I would no longer be needed in the class, but I was hardly surprised to find a new teacher sitting at my desk when I returned from the break in January. I told him everything I'd pieced together from before I took over and left detailed plans for all that I'd done in the month that I was in the class. He didn't seem interested or thankful; he was filled with the same enthusiasm I'd felt on the first day and thought he could handle anything with ease and confidence.  

Day 25: Reflection

Looking back over my list of 24 things, I notice that most of what I removed was broken, no longer useful, or something that held memories so strong that the object itself pounded against my heart and brought tears to my eyes. I held on to so many of these things for years because I thought that removing them would be too complicated and time consuming. What I've found is that if you put enough passion and energy behind your motivation to make change it's suddenly not so challenging.

Over the 24 days, I put many things aside with intentions of having a yard sale at the end of the month. Last week, knowing nothing of my efforts, my landlord sent me a text message to say that his wife had helped organize a neighborhood yard sale and would be happy if I would join.  I was only able to sell a few items on Saturday, however, I dragged the remaining objects back into my home and left them in the center of my kitchen floor.  I was determined not to push them away into a closet or under my bed where I'd be likely to forget about them and lose my desire to remove the clutter. I photographed each item and posted ads on craigslist. In under a week, I have met many interesting people, had hilarious conversations, and sold most of the items, including the giant gym pictured to the left that I wrote about on day 10.

With the gym equipment finally gone, I could reclaim my spare room as my own. I moved in my books and altar, hung up curtains that I purchased in anticipation a year ago, dusted, vacuumed and created a space in my home that feels so inviting I almost can't believe that a week ago it was filled with clutter and anger. A thin metal pipe in the corner of the room carries heat to my landlord's apartment in the winter, making it the warmest room in my home. In the summer the windows let in a beautiful breeze that rustles the leaves of the giant oak tree out front. It is also the brightest room; the sun shines in from early morning until sunset. Before 24 things I'd walk through this room daily to get the mail and would look disdainfully at the gym equipment and boxes piled across the thick black mat that covered the floor. It was like walking into the dark pit of the past; I'd emerge each day with a handful of mail and a fresh load of anger, frustration, and a feeling that I couldn't do anything to change my surroundings.  The gym was too big to move myself, I reasoned. I couldn't find anyone to buy it on craigslist, I was reluctant to turn it into scrap metal or donate it-- I continued to make excuses for why I hadn't yet removed it. I don't think it was coincidental that a few days after I posted the story of the gym, someone contacted me that he was interested in buying it. The following day, a man in a Honda Fit showed up to take away the three pairs of crutches I'd posted the night before. He offered to return with his truck and tools to take the gym away for free if I wasn't able to sell it. As soon as I had made up my mind to get rid of these items, opportunities to let go became present.

I recognize now that part of me wanted to hold on to these items so that I could feed into the story of my inconsiderate ex-husband dumping his troubles on me. The more I could picture him as the problem, the more I could play the victim. I became attached to saying that he still hadn't come back to take away his things, however, in truth, I hadn't done anything to initiate a change. I'd text him with forceful intentions, but cave into sympathy when he'd mention his over-loaded schedule or crisis situation of the month. I think deep down a part of me wanted a struggle, wanted to say: look world, look what he's done, see what he's put me through. Not to say that he wasn't at fault, but I perpetuated the situation by not taking a stand sooner, by not being fully committed to moving on.

At the onset of the 24 things challenge, I was certain I knew what my sankalpa was. A week in, I suddenly had no idea what direction my life was headed or what I truly wanted. In letting go, I found a place of complete non-attachment, not just to the objects, but to the stories, my past, my future. Writing the stories, releasing them into the anonymity of the internet gave me a sense of freedom of moving beyond the past to exist in the present. 


Removing the 24 things has not only opened up a physical space, but it has also led to a weightlessness, a freedom from attachment to emotions. I  have enjoyed paying attention to how much emotion a single object can hold, and how, unlike the fixed object, the emotions can shift radically. When I first moved home from Georgia and was unemployed, I took part in a research study that required me to have an MRI. They asked me to remove my wedding band and I refused. I hadn't taken it off since my husband slipped it over my finger during the ceremony two years before. They explained that the MRI could heat the metal of the ring and burn my finger. I was willing to risk injuring myself to avoid taking off this ring that now sits tucked out of sight somewhere. It's amazing to me that I could be so attached to something material. I have recently been entertaining the thought of selling everything I own and I honestly could not think of a single object that I would be reluctant to remove. I really have found freedom from fixtures.

In addition to letting go of objects, coming to terms with my past, and moving forward into the uncertain future, I have proven to myself that I can find time to devote to daily writing. While my husband was stationed in Germany and deployed to Iraq, I was ardently going after an English degree with hopes of sustaining myself through a career in writing. Rejection letters and going back to school to eventually earn a full-time job, led me to believe I didn't have the time, energy, and, more significantly, the skills to sustain any type of writing project. My writing became confined to infrequent journal entries that could easily be confused with the lovesick writings of a 14 year old girl. On the final day of a five-day intensive workshop last summer, we wrote a statement about what we truly wanted to do to be of service to the world. Part of my statement was to write, I wasn't yet sure what, but I knew I needed to return to the dream I'd lost in the sandstorm of adult responsibilities. When everyone around you is set on a fixed path of college, marriage, career, baby, retirement, death, it's hard to stray from that path for something less certain, less expected.

A year ago, I was sure that I was headed in the right direction, I had a career, a husband, a nice apartment, I was saving to buy a house, my future was laid out ahead of me in a single straight path to death. My divorce was like a giant redwood falling across this set path, forcing me to find new direction, new meaning. I am so grateful that something so challenging, so heartbreaking, could show me that I don't want to be following frozen footsteps through time.

Writing hasn't been the only old passion that has returned to my life over the past 24 days. Freeing up space has allowed me to recall and put effort into pursuing desires that had turned to dreams and were drowned out by the steady finality of tradition.

At this time last year I felt like the ground was falling out from beneath my feet. I couldn't find my footing as everything constant in my life began to fall away. I felt powerless without control over my situation or my emotions. Now, I am holding a jackhammer tightly in my hands and chipping away at the earth that has supported me. I'm kicking up a whirlwind of transformation and looking forward to finding a new path once the dust finally settles.

Day 24: Glass Gift

My husband knew that he wanted to join the military from the time he started kindergarten. The service would be a way for him to rise above his family history. His father is currently serving nine life sentences, many of his more than a dozen brothers and sisters ended up in prison or on drugs. He was desperate to be different. Desperate to bring honor to his name.

On his eighteenth birthday he signed an eight year contract at a local army recruitment center. A few months later he went off to basic training. He was allowed to return home for the holidays before boot camp had officially ended.

I learned to recognize a certain look in the eyes of men who have served in the military. A British photographer recently created an exhibit of photos taken of soldiers before, during, and after war. The rigidity in their faces and pleading harshness of their gaze is unmistakable. Something changes within them, even before they've seen combat.

I picked my then-boyfriend up at the airport when he landed back in Boston before the end of basic training. He stood straight backed and strode hurriedly across the airport; I was nearly jogging to keep up beside him. I remember he wouldn't hold my hand because there was some regulation that declared he must hold his duffel bag in one hand and his beret in the other. I remember thinking that these new rules were ridiculous and offered room only for order and regularity.

After high school, I started working at a bookstore in the Prudential Center. He would come to meet me when he was free so that I wouldn't have to walk back to the train station and home alone. I took a photo of him just before he left for basic. He smiled slyly at the camera, one knee bent to rest his foot on the metal subway platform sign, his shoulders unevenly slouched forward, a hat cocked slightly off center, his flannel, ripped jeans, and long sleeved shirt with fraying thumb holes were the image of the man I'd fallen in love with. Three months later, on leave, I asked to take another picture of him. He stood tall, arms locked by his side, fingers clenched into fists, feet at a perfect right angle, shoulders pressed back, lips pursed in a fine line, his bare head showed stubble where hair had once been. Something in him had changed.

He packed his green, army-issued duffel bag with clothes and Christmas gifts. The glass block, etched with roses and "I love you" was one of the gifts he wrapped securely in socks to bring back from Georgia. I kept it on my bureau for years and would look at it each morning as I got ready for work or college classes.

It's amazing how much clarity comes from being detached from a situation or person. As I have recorded all of these stories about my ex-husband, I see that our relationship was set to fail from the start. We were two completely different people, even then, and the gap between us only grew wider as the years went on and our world views changed. Toward the end of our relationship, I observed that the only thing we had in common was our past together. Now, the only thing keeping him in my life is the objects I've held on to, too afraid to let go of the past, of the "us", that could never have lasted.

Day 23: Car Seat

When I first moved back to Massachusetts from Georgia, I spent a year working two jobs. By day I was an on call substitute teacher, by night a receptionist at a Chevy dealership. Sometimes the school secretary would book dates with me in advance, but most days I would get a phone call between 5:30 and 7:00 AM asking if I'd come in. Even on days when my phone didn't ring, I'd wake up and stare into the early morning darkness, wondering if I was going to have to get ready in a rush. I went directly from the school to the Chevy dealership. With traffic it took close to 30 minutes to drive from one job to the next. Listening to music was my only reprieve, my only way to decompress in between.

Not surprisingly, I grew wary of waking up suddenly to supervise high and middle school students for barely enough money to buy dinner. When my brother and his wife had their first child in January my sister-in-law was granted six weeks of unpaid maternity leave. She would lose her job if she didn't return after the allotted time. I agreed, somewhat anxiously, to give up substitute teaching to watch my niece each day. Up to that point, I'd only held an infant twice in my life-- once when I was ten and sitting on a couch in a relative's house, and the second time the day my niece was born and I cradled her tiny, wriggling body in my arms in the hospital room.

I learned to heat bottles of formula, change diapers, tap her back for burps, and rock my niece to sleep for her morning nap. Most, in those months, I learned to love. On dark rainy days we would curl up together on the couch and sleep until the afternoon. I would doze off with my arms wrapped around her, my palm pressing against her chest, feeling her heartbeat. If she even blinked her eyes open, I'd wake up instantly.

As I got more comfortable with her, my brother clipped a car seat into my Cobalt's back center seat so that we could take trips to the supermarket, the bakery, or, in the late afternoon when it was time for me to go to work, to my brother's construction site. I took care of her each day from March until August when I was hired as a full-time teacher.  I worried that when I started to work full-time and could only find time to see her occasionally that she'd forget who I was. I could not have been more mistaken.  The bond that we forged in those few months is palpable, even today.

Before she could walk, she would wave her arms and legs wildly as soon as I entered the room, smiling and cooing hello. When she learned to walk she would come tottering toward me, arms outstretched. Now, she yells, "Auntie's here," and comes sprinting to jump up and wrap her arms around my neck. When we have family meals, she refuses to eat dinner anywhere but on my lap and has to eat whatever is on my plate, even though it's always completely different from what everyone else has. When our family gets together, she drags me into another room, away from everyone else, and begs, "Auntie play." If anyone tries to join us as we somersault across the floor or sip imaginary tea from plastic cups she yells, "Get in the kitchen," and pushes them into the other room.

She outgrew the car seat pictured above years ago. I tried to return it to my brother, but he wouldn't take it back. I've kept it in my hallway for two years, used it as a basket for my boxing gloves. Although unlike most other things on my list of 24, it brings back memories of love and happiness, it no longer serves me. We must not cling to and become attached to objects and emotions, whether positive or negative. We must learn to let go of the good and the bad. 

Day 22: Home Phone

If you've ever tried to buy internet, TV, or home phone service independently, you probably discovered that internet is information superhighway robbery and cable and phone are usually just a few dollars extra when added to a package. When I first moved out with my husband, we got the internet and phone package since long distance calls home ate away at my prepaid phone minutes. Having a house phone meant telemarketers called daily to ask for donations, make sales, or conduct surveys.

If my husband was home, he took charge of answering the phone--my family only ever called on Sundays, his friends from around the world called at all hours, all days. My husband's short fuse was even shorter when it came to telemarketers. Rather than politely saying he wasn't interested and hanging up, he'd engage in a one-way yelling match with whoever was on the receiving end. He had trouble getting three words out without using some type of profanity and when the person on the receiving end would ask him not to swear it would only send them spewing out faster.

Once, I received a call to participate in a survey while he was at work. It was before I started going back to school full-time and was unemployed, so I looked forward to human interaction, even if it meant someone was trying to sell something I wasn't interested in or ask me random questions. When I agreed to the survey the person sounded surprised then said in a southern drawl, "You're a lot nicer than the man we talked to when we tried to call before." I finished the survey and agreed that they could send me a follow up questionnaire in the mail. The questionnaire came with $20 cash enclosed. Reparations for being married to such a maniac, I told my husband, who was not at all amused.

When we moved back to Massachusetts and got our own apartment neither of us was ever home long enough to warrant the use of a home phone, so the one pictured above was tucked into a closet with all of the other electronics I discarded last week. Unable to sell it at a yard sale this Saturday, I tucked it into the box of donations to be taken away by the Salvation Army to hopefully provide service to someone else.

Day 21: Split Ends

When the doctor lifted me up, plucked away my umbilical cord, cleaned me off, and tucked me into my mother's arms, I had a full head of hair. It was dark brown and matted against my tiny head. Two months later, my body temperature rose to 110 causing all of my hair to fall out and the doctors to discover that I was born with a kidney disease. Being the only one in my family with this genetic disorder was as unlikely as my living past infancy, but somehow I survived and my hair slowly grew back. My mother tells stories of how she would clip barrettes in my slippery strands and I would rip them out and throw them to the sidewalk beyond my carriage. From an early age, my hair was an object of contention between my mother and I.

Growing up, I always wanted long hair. I was envious of other girls in my class at school whose hair reached to the waistband of their pants. As soon as mine seemed to get close, my mother would take me to the hairdresser to have it trimmed. When I was ten, my father fell backwards from the top step of a six foot ladder, breaking his back in three places, causing him to lose his job as an HVAC mechanic. My mother decided she would become a hairdresser to supplement the disability checks that sometimes took months to arrive in the mail and were hardly enough to feed a family of four. Once she was a hairdresser, she kept my hair shoulder-length-short until I decided to grow it out in high school.

By the time I was a senior, my hair hung in a dark-blonde blanket more than mid-way down my back. My mother convinced me to let her trim the split ends. As I sat in the chair on our back porch, the smock wrapped around my shoulders, my mother cut off six inches so that my hair barely brushed my shoulders. A month later, I struggled to slip it in into a bun for my last dance recital. In defiance, I grew my hair out and let the ends go jagged for nine years after that. "Your hair looks terrible," my mother would say, picking at the ends every time I saw her.

After growing it our for nine years, I'd finally achieved my childhood dream of having hair that brushed my butt, however, I soon grew tired of it getting in the way of everything. It would spin around my jump rope at the gym, stick to the back of my neck in the yoga studio, and strangle me in my sleep. Although I caved in to having it cut, I didn't go to my mother. Instead, I walked to a shop two blocks from my house and had 13 inches clipped away, bundled, and donated. A little more than a year later the ends had already started to dry out and split.

I have been studying Buddhism for several years now and there is one Zen story that I recall whenever I feel myself becoming too attached. Here is the story: Two monks were walking together when they came to a river. A woman asked if they would help her across.  It was against their order to touch a woman, however, the senior monk carried the woman to the other side of the river. Once on the other side, the two monks continued on and the junior monk voiced his disapproval. At the end of the day the senior monk responded, "I left the woman at the edge of the river. You have been carrying her all day."

Today, I asked my mother to trim the split ends from my hair.  She did as promised and only clipped the dried out tips. Had she snipped my hair up to my shoulders or chin I wouldn't have cared. After all, it's only hair and will soon grow back. I allowed the weight of anger to drape down my back and hold me down for far too long.
 

Day 20: Text Messages

Although my husband first told me he was leaving me face-to-face, we didn't have much of a conversation. He said he was moving out, I said okay. He curled up on the couch and fell asleep, I stared at the book I had been reading and pretended to be focused on the words. Weeks later, he texted me from work to say that he was going to be gone within two weeks. He hadn't mentioned moving since his first declaration that he was leaving, and as far as I could tell nothing had changed. I was still waking up every morning to drive him to work. He was still spending endless hours at the gym every night.  I was cooking dinner and packing him a lunch every day. We were still sleeping side-by-side.  I was beginning to wonder whether or not I had imagined the conversation or if he had just forgotten about it completely. The text message was the first time he'd even alluded to his original plan, and by then I'd had enough of walking around, wondering if and when he was leaving and what exactly it meant for us. I responded to his text by asking outright if we were getting a divorce, if he was just taking a break, if there was any chance of reconciliation. What followed was an hour long conversation in which he unloaded all of the reasons why I had caused the breakdown of our relationship and how there was no hope that things would work. I responded with one word answers, occasionally adding that I was sorry he felt the way he did.

The things that he said to me in the conversation were devastating. Throughout our relationship he always had a way of placing blame on me, making me feel guilty when he had done something to upset me. Just before he told me he was leaving I had confronted him about lies I'd discovered while he was at work that day. In his text messages, he sited my lack of trust as one of the reasons why our relationship couldn't work. It had nothing to do with the fact that he broke my trust on numerous occasions, it was my fault. It took months for me to come to the realization that I was not completely to blame, that I hadn't single-handedly caused the collapse of our relationship by lacking trust, being overly-judgmental and the slew of other character flaws he indicated.

I would go back to the text messages frequently to re-read the conversation. At one point I even wrote down all of the things he'd said in an attempt to better myself, to fix these flawed characteristics that would render me single for the remainder of my lonely life. It took months of processing to realize that we were both to blame and that analyzing my every emotion, action, and reaction was not helping me to let go and move on.

Even though I haven't gone back to read the text messages for months, they've still been filling up my inbox, overloading the SIM card in my phone. Although I wasn't reading the texts, I was reminded of them every time I received an incoming text and my phone flashed the warning: Memory low: Delete messages to receive new texts. I would delete conversations with friends, being careful not to touch any from my ex.

For day 20, I deleted all of his texts, freeing space from my phone and my heart. I no longer have room in my life for the self-loathing, finger-pointing that once ruled my thoughts. 

Day 19: Willow Tree Figures

In high school, Harvard Square was my favorite place to wander around on weekends. I'd get a medium extra bold freddo from Peet's coffee, and lose hours in Beadworks, Urban Outfitters, the Harvard Bookstore, Planet Aid, Newbury Comics, Hootenany, the Hempest, and Hidden Sweets. In all of the stores, I could feel myself being followed by store employees. My excessive indecisiveness meant I could spend hours in a single store, walking with my hands shoved deep into my pockets, toting a giant bag on my left shoulder.  I'd suspect me of shoplifting too.

In Hidden Sweets I'd barely fill the bottom of the small paper candy bags with carefully chosen jelly beans, black licorice, and nonpareils. Even though it only ever amounted to a handful, the candy would last me weeks. I'd savor one jelly bean a day, biting it in half first, then studying the sweet center while the first half dissolved in my mouth.

Hidden Sweets had more than just candy.  Further into the store one could find toys and collectibles. A cross between the Hallmark store and Spencer's, it quickly became one of my favorite places to lose time.

It was in Hidden Sweets that I first discovered Willow Tree figures. An entire wall display was devoted to the small, carved people in poses. I loved the feature-less, but emotion-filled faces and wrinkled bodies of the figures. I couldn't justify the cost of these creations for something that was simply ornamental. I only ever bought one figure after months (literally) of returning to the store to stare at it on the shelf. The figure was of a woman, a strand of her long hair across her featureless face, her arms tucked tight around an American flag and pressed to her chest over her heart.  Although she does not have eyes, her gait is one of someone staring off in an attitude of honor and grief. This was the only statue I left on my mantel after my husband left. Although he made it back alive, he always said that part of him died in Iraq.

As I stared at the statues in Hidden Sweets I thought to myself how nice it would be to have someone who would buy them for me. Years later, when he bought me a Willow Tree figure of a couple embracing, I told him how I'd always wished to have them given as a gift. He continued buying them yearly, usually for our anniversary. The couple figures bore an uncanny resemblance to the two of us. I lined them symmetrically along the mantel between picture frames and gazed at them from my living room couch while pretending to be interested in the marathon hours of UFC fights I was forced to sit through.

When he left, the figures were the first thing I took down and packed away in the foot of my closet. I thought that if they were out of sight they wouldn't trigger the grief that came in waves, engulfing me in an instant, rolling back out just as suddenly. I put the figures back in their original boxes between the Styrofoam and squeezed them in beside stacks of important papers. The sight of these each time I had to go thumbing through piles of papers was enough to send the sword of sadness directly to my heart. Until now though, I didn't have the strength to find them a new home. How freeing it has been to pick up these painful emotions from the corners of my house, my heart, and let them back into the world.

Day 18: Christmas Ornaments

I never wanted a Christmas tree, ornaments, or decorations for a holiday I only celebrated out of custom.  The first year we had a home together, my mother-in-law bought my husband and I a set of ornaments. Tucked inside three tiers of plastic in a gingerbread house shaped box, were ornaments crafted to look like sugar cookies and candy. My husband made the mistake of pointing out the fact that we didn't have a tree on which to hang them. As soon as we were back in Massachusetts, my mother-in-law showed up at our apartment with a Christmas tree. "This will be the easiest tree you ever put together," she said. "You don't even have to sting the lights." She made us take it from the box and stand it up in our living room. As soon as she left it became the easiest tree we ever took down.

In its long box, the tree took up an entire half of the large white cabinet in our hallway. By December, I'd decided that if the tree was going to take up so much space, we may as well stand it up in the living room for a week or two.

That first Christmas with the tree was during the days before our marriage started its rapid descent. For fun one night, we went to Michael's Arts and Crafts to buy ornament making kits. We sat at the kitchen table and hot glued snowmen sleighs, pom-pom penguins, and jingle bell mice. We each created our own stocking with glitter glue, patches, pins, and stickers.  We bought each other ornaments of cartoon characters and TV shows like the ones pictured above.

Although I grew up in Boston, I've always hated the Red Sox. At first my father instilled his hatred for the team in me as a child, then my own grudge formed after they directly caused the fast food restaurant I'd worked at from 15-19 to close down. After we had the Christmas tree, my mother-in-law continued to buy us ornaments.  One year she bought a Red Sox World Series special edition glass ornament for my husband who loved the team.

The second Christmas that we stood the tree in our living room, my ex-husband came home drunk one night and punched the tree to the ground. I heard the glass shatter from the other room and came to calm him down. After I'd righted the tree, picked up all the ornaments that had fallen off and scattered all over the floor, I discovered that the only ornament that had shattered was the glass Red Sox ball hanging toward the tree top.

A few months after my husband left me, his girlfriend posted pictures of their Christmas tree adorned with home-made ornaments. He'd cut a star into a beer can and placed it on the tree top. I was filled with so much anger-- he'd been with her before he'd left me-- that I wanted to pack up all of our ornaments and the tree I never wanted and drop them on her doorstep. Instead, I kept it all shut away in the white cabinet and I shoved the anger down deep inside. As I let go of the ornaments, I know that I will be lifting away some of the anger triggered by these pieces of plastic.

Day 17: Boom Box

In high school, music influenced how we talked, dressed, acted, who we formed friendships with. For most of high school, I didn't listen to music. I've always wondered if my lack of musical interest is why I floated between groups, becoming acquaintances with many, but never finding my place, never finding a group of people I'd consider close friends.

Growing up, I always listened to whatever music my brother, who was four years older than me, was into. As a result, my music choices were never the same as everyone else my age, which, along with many other odd personality quirks, rendered me an outcast. In fifth grade the other students started calling me Alanis Morissette as if it were an insult. By the time I was in high school I had gone through a phase of listening to just about every type of music--rap, hip-hop, alternative, classic rock, boy bands, pop music, classical. I had learned to lip sync or hum along to every genre except country and no longer cared for any of it.

Half-way through high school I got my first job working at a fast food restaurant around the corner from my house. The shop, known for its 17 flavors of boneless and bone-in chicken wings, was located between a liquor store and a bar. The cast of characters who frequented the take-out restaurant, and who worked within, were enough to keep me entertained every Saturday night. I have retold stories from the restaurant for years after it suddenly shut down. To this day, I still brag about how it was the best job I've ever had.

Saturday nights were always busy. After hours of frenzied food flipping, when the phone finally ceased its constant ringing, the guys in the kitchen would turn up their music and start scraping scalded sauce from the metal stove, scrubbing pans, wiping down counter tops, and mopping the floor.  Neil always brought death metal to blast louder than the karaoke coming from next door. The rapid drum rhythms, guitar riffs, and unintelligible lyrics grew on me.  When I admitted how much I enjoyed the music, Neil burned me two CDs, a compilation of his favorite bands. When I was angry, I'd blast death metal into my headphones and speed walk around my city for hours.  At home, I'd sit on my bedroom floor, creating crafts with my hands while playing his CDs from the stereo pictured above.

I didn't find out that Neil had a heart condition until he died of a heart attack at a death metal concert less than a year after Wings closed its doors. He was in his twenties. After his death, I slowly stopped listening to his favorite bands. They brought back too many memories and I wasn't yet in a place to process the pain.

Influenced by my fiance, I started listening to music from the early 90s. When he was deployed to Iraq, I let the music drown out the sound of my anxiety-laden thoughts. It's no wonder that the incessant song spinning eventually caused the CD player to stop working. I held onto the boom box because the tape player and radio still worked just fine. I've since replaced it with a much smaller, portable player that serves the same function. The old boom box will be joining the box of broken electronics at the dump this weekend.

Day 16: Sword

My ex-husband and I met in a high school sculpture class. He dressed like a Vietnam Veteran trapped in the year 1991 when grunge music was most popular. He'd wear black jungle boots, army fatigue pants, a band t-shirt (think Pearl Jam, Nirvana, the Smashing Pumpkins), and ripped flannels. He grew is hair out long and was easily mistaken for a junkie in a city where drug use was all too common.

The first day of sculpture class I took to a table in the back of the room, afraid that someone would find out I had never taken an art class before and call my bluff. I signed up to make ceramic coffee mugs only to find that the kiln to heat the clay had broken the year before. Since we didn't have the funds to replace it, we created art from trash and the least expensive materials available. We crafted sculptures out of cardboard, paper, wire, cut up soda cans, plaster (in strips and blocks), clay, and paper mache.

My ex-husband would destroy his sculptures immediately after finishing them. He'd drop them on our teacher's desk for a grade and as soon as she was finished he would send them flying across the room to be stomped under his feet and chucked into a trash barrel. Most projects were lucky to make it to the "finished" stage. Even then he was prone to fits of anger if things didn't turn out exactly as he'd planned. Once, he was carving something out of a large block of plaster when he made a mistake, palmed the block in his over-sized hand, raised it above his head and slammed it on the table where we sat. Everyone else at the table ducked or jumped back, but I stood, unflinching, calm. Our teacher, who generally tolerated his behavior, sent him into the hallway and led several students over to the sink to wash plaster particles out of their eyes.

Only two projects survived his fits of anger and accomplishment. He rebuilt a soda can by puzzling together smaller pieces of many different cans and gave it to me as a gift. I kept it in my locker for the rest of senior year and still have it in my home today (soon to be on the list of 24 things, however.) The only other surviving project was the sword pictured above-- a hockey stick covered in plaster strips. His closest friend kept it for him until we moved back from Georgia to Massachusetts. It is now covered in a thick layer of nicotine, dust, and dirt that have stained the white plaster a sickly shade of orange.

It's time to tuck this ridiculous ten-year-old relic into the trash.

Day 15: Prom Dress

I never planned on going to my senior prom. I hadn't been to my junior prom or eighth grade semi and had only gone to a Friday night dance once in seventh grade. Even though I took ballet lessons every day after school, I never considered myself a dancer, at least not the type that would feel comfortable on a public dance floor. In spite of my qualms, when a friend asked me to be his date for the prom I said yes and pretended that I didn't care that I'd been asked out as early as September.

I later discovered that after asking me to the prom, the same guy had asked out two other girls who I happened to be friends with. You'd think if he was going to ask three different girls to the prom he'd at least have the decency or common sense to ask three girls who weren't friends. When we discovered his faux pas, we all turned him down and decided to go together in a statement of solidarity and to prove that we didn't need a date to have a good time.

My mother was just as surprised as I was that I would be going to my prom, and she excitedly planned a day for us to go dress shopping. Back then there were rows of dress shops bordering route one-- the highway near where we lived.  I rolled my eyes and scowled at the over-zealous store employees who were much too excited to fit me for a prom gown. After standing humiliated in the third store's dressing room while the sales associate stuffed falsies into my dress top and passed me mid-section baring dress after dress despite my refusal to try them on, I declared that I was going to make my own gown instead. Probably picturing the black duct tape ensemble I would have created (and it would have looked beautiful by the way, I was and am quite crafty) my mother drove me to the mall so I could disappear into the rows of dresses in a department store where you had to flag down someone just to open the dressing room for you.

I'm pretty certain the only dress I tried on in the store was the one pictured above. It was strapless, fluorescent green, layered with bright blue tulle, and embroidered with blue beads on the bodice and down the right side. It couldn't have been further from my norm which involved jeans, a long sleeve shirt layered beneath a t-shirt with an 80s cartoon print design, and a black zippered hoodie. I wore dark muted colors and long sleeves even in the summer time. When I put the dress on I couldn't help but laugh at my reflection in the dressing room mirror. A stranger said that I'd certainly "stand out" at the prom. My mother asked if I was sure this was the dress I wanted. I said yes and her "okay" told me that it was ridiculously out of character, but equally as worn down from the previous dress store experiences, she conceded and we went to a cash register.

I decided to hand make my own purse since I hadn't had the opportunity to make my own gown. I embroidered blue felt with bright green ribbon flowers and sewed beads in the same pattern as those on my dress. I bought multicolored yarn to crochet the handle. Growing up, I never had many friends and spent most of my free time reading or teaching myself hand crafts.  By the time I graduated from high school I could embroider, crochet, knit, basket weave, bead, macrame, and jewelry make. 

At the prom, I refused to eat dinner and made a sad face out of the food that was given to us-- lamb, overcooked vegetables, and potatoes. The tables were cleared away and hundreds of students piled onto the classroom sized dance floor. I lasted about five minutes on the parquet before my friend's date started dancing inappropriately against me and I slipped away through the side door in search of solitude.  I spent the remainder of the night sitting by the coffee canister, pouring cup after cup. The high school junior who I would marry years later found me sitting alone and ditched his girlfriend to spend the night drinking coffee and talking to me. Neither of us was ever able to remember what we said in the hours we sat together that night.

Last week when a guidance counselor at the school where I teach-- the same school I graduated from ten years ago-- sent out an email asking if anyone had an old prom dress to donate, I immediately responded. I went back to my parents' house this weekend for mother's day and knew that my prom dress would still be hanging in their attic beside my wedding dress and every dance costume I ever wore from age three to eighteen (my parents would benefit from a 24 things or two.)  With a few extra wrinkles, it looked exactly as it did ten years ago.

Recently, someone said that when you try to make change the universe often conspires to allow it. I'm finding that when you want to let go, the universe open its arms wide and upturns its hands.

Day 14: Crutches

After returning from Iraq, my ex-husband immersed himself in combat sports in an attempt to fill the void left from no longer feeling the daily adrenaline rush that came from fearing for his life. He found mixed martial arts while we were living in Georgia. Something about the repetitive drills, the one-on-one fighting that forced him to rely on muscle memory and quick decisions drew him in. He'd return home from the gym sweat soaked and happy. When we moved back to Massachusetts, he found a gym in Boston that offered him the outlet that he needed to balance out the comparatively low stress of civilian life.

When he switched from working the overnight shift, to a busy day time shift at a major Boston hospital, he started going directly from work to the gym and would not return home until 9, sometimes 10 o'clock at night. I woke up before the sun to drive him to the train station and continue on to arrive at work almost two hours early. I picked him up at the train station each night and by the time he got home, reheated the food I'd placed aside, and shoveled it at record speed into his mouth, it was after ten o'clock and I was ready to sleep before beginning it all again the following day. His days off were Wednesday and Thursday, mine Saturday and Sunday, so we barely spent time together. When I would complain he'd say, "But I need to go to the gym," which, as it turned out, was the truth.

Going from a high stress job of running through hospital hallways and into rooms to defend doctors from families of lost loved ones or hold down combative patients who desperately tried to kick, punch, and spit their way to freedom, to working out for hours in a gym it was not surprising that he often injured himself. The injuries he sustained were not the usual pulled muscles, strained ligaments, or the common fatigue that most would experience, but injuries that required surgery or a long term recovery. He went through cycles of working out six hours a day, to injuring himself and spending months unable to workout and, instead, coming home and drowning his sorrows in alcohol. There was never an in between.

In the three years he lived with me in Massachusetts before moving out, he acquired three pairs of crutches for various injuries. He had a third surgery last summer immediately after leaving me. We kept the crutches in the corner of the entryway, knowing logically that he would need to use them again. He left them behind when he moved out and I relocated them from the entryway to the corner behind his giant gym.  At the lowest level the crutches could accommodate someone 5'10, at 5'4 there is no chance I could ever use them. When I asked him recently if he wanted to take them back, he said no, that he would get another pair when he needed them anyway.

I posted an add for them last night under the free section of Craigslist and this morning a man showed up in his Honda Fit and took away all three pairs to break down and turn into scrap metal. Getting rid of something that has only served to bring up memories of the past has never been so easy.

Day 13: Electronics

The apartment that I am living in currently came with three large cabinets. The largest one is about a foot taller than I am. My ex husband also happened to be a foot taller than me and he often piled his things in hard to reach places, knowing that I wouldn't be tempted to clean or reorganize them. The things on top of the white cabinet were piled so high that they nearly reached the ceiling in our cavernous Victorian hallway. He left everything up there when he moved out. I'd find my gaze settling on the mess of wires and boxes every time I walked from my kitchen to my living room. Eventually, I moved everything on top inside the white cabinet. The dark, rainy weather today made for a perfect opportunity to finally unpack and sort through the things I barely looked at before shoving them far into the shelves.

The city I live in offers an electronic drop off opportunity once a month (this month's is a week from today.) I will be dropping off and freeing myself from the following items: 1) a box filled with miscellaneous wires many of which I couldn't say with confidence what they would belong to 2) my first DVD player, a Christmas gift that I received as a teenager. DVD players were just coming out and I resisted letting go of my VCR and VHS tapes much like I'm currently resisting letting go of my outdated phone in favor of a touchscreen with internet and apps and whatever other new technologies people my age enjoy 3) a set of speakers that belonged to my ex husband. I can't recall ever seeing these used and have no idea if they even work 4) a Nintendo Gamecube with four games, and two controllers, also something I've never seen in use 5) two mysterious controllers that I vaguely remember plugging into my husband's laptop in Georgia to play original Nintendo Games like Mike Tyson's Punchout 6) an X-Box 360 that broke years ago 7) a broken internet router, neatly replaced to its original packaging, looking deceptively useful 8) an old home telephone 9) a telephone modem that may or may not work. 10) an old hair dryer that broke years ago.

Over the past few weeks I have noticed that most of the items I have been holding onto and am now letting go of are broken.  How wonderful it will be to eliminate all of these objects whose only function has been to take up space and to remind me constantly of the broken past.   

Day 12: Iron

The army stresses precision in mundane tasks like shoe shining, bed making, and ironing. My ex husband avoided bed-making post boot camp, but took to shoe-shining and ironing with a meticulous accuracy that rivaled even my obsessive compulsive tendencies. When he left the army and moved back to Massachusetts he got a job working as a security guard, monitoring the parking lot of an abandoned building during the over night shift. He parked his car at 9 PM and had to periodically make rounds until 5 AM. Not surprisingly, he seldom saw anyone other than a stray drunk who had lost his way home. Despite the darkness and solitude, preparing his uniform was a nightly ritual that took hours to perform. He shined his boots with Kiwi shoe-shine and spit, rubbing the brush back and forth, back and forth until they reflected light from sole to tongue tip. I'd find smears of black on the kitchen floor and learned to recognize the pungent, chemical odor.

Worse than the shoe shining was the ironing. Pants, shirt, vest had to have unmistakably straight lines running in perfect precision from ankle to waist and wrist to shoulder. He'd heat the iron to smoldering and bend over the ironing board for at least an hour, folding, unfolding, refolding, creasing, matching up edges in a perfectly choreographed dance. He ironed his uniform so excessively that the fabric began to melt off and mark the iron. He of course blamed the iron and the fabric. When the fabric marks had taken over most of the base, we replaced the iron pictured above and I talked him into taking the new one when he left.

Ironing has always been the single household chore that I avoid at all costs. I will vacuum, scrub the tub and toilet, mop the floor, brush the rugs, dust for days but will not lift an iron. I wear skirts to work all year long and buy fabric that does not wrinkle to avoid ironing completely. Despite my preference not to press, I have been holding on to the old iron with polyester fibers still sticking to the silvery surface. When heated, the blue hue of the fabric marks anything you press the iron onto. Even if I ironed, I would not use this. It seems only logical to clear a space in my kitchen cabinet by removing this pointed and pointless object.

Day 11: Carousel

My former mother-in-law did all of her holiday shopping on QVC, the 24 hour home shopping network featuring heavily made-up, over-the-top TV personalities trying to sell you a slew of "limited edition" and "last chance" items. With a phone call and credit card you can purchase anything in twelve easy payments. Every year, my mother-in-law boasted about how she'd finished shopping for everyone in June. She was also notoriously good at buying things with her own personal tastes in mind. My first Christmas with my husband she bought me elbow height, black and pink polka dotted gloves, long silver earrings and a matching necklace that I quickly slipped into a donation box before January. My husband and sister-in-law graciously warned me that feigning excitement would be the only way to escape the holidays unscathed.  She'd pass us gifts one at a time and stand watch as we pulled the paper off. Coming from a family whose gift giving was a disordered free for all, the spotlight attention made it ever-more challenging to appear enthusiastic.  Over the years, I learned to accept with a smile the silky, lacy, leopard-print, sequined, and ill-fitting items that she piled upon me each December.

Birthdays were not nearly as important to her as Christmas, Saint Patrick's Day, or Bunker Hill Day, so it came as a surprise when I randomly received a package for my 26th birthday.  I cautiously opened the cardboard box and lifted the carousel from the styrofoam and bubble wrap. Porcelain perhaps, or something similar, painted intermittently with gold and printed sporadically with flowers. The bottom winds around to produce music and sends the top spinning. Oddly enough, I danced to the song in a recital when I was 10 years old and committed to becoming a professional ballet dancer after high school.

Maybe it was the nostalgic music that made me place this on a bookshelf or the fact that I loved carousels as a child. Maybe I kept it because I once collected music boxes and would send them spinning when I was feeling upset or depressed. Or maybe it was the fact that my mother-in-law had a way of showing up at our doorstep unannounced, inviting herself into our apartment, and perusing every room before randomly asking about a gift she'd given years ago.

I spent a recent snow day moving furniture around my apartment, and I can now see the carousel from where I sit on my living room couch. I find myself glancing up at it often and thinking about how I don't need or want it. I plan to find it a new home in hopes that the repetitive rhythm of the waltz will provide a soothing solace for someone else.

Day 10: Gym Equipment

The giant metal and plastic structures take over an entire spare room of my apartment and threaten to put Gold's Gym out of business. The size and weight of the equipment make removing them a job I will not be able to do alone. The giant gym to the right has become a symbol of my anger and frustration left over from my failed marriage. The emotional weight that these pieces carry is far greater than their physical bearing.

In Georgia, we lived in a three bedroom apartment. As a military couple it was expected that we would have many children and would need the extra space. Knowing that having kids would not be a part of our future together, we each claimed one of the spare rooms for our own personal space. I lined mine with bookcases that I quickly filled at an annual library sale that offered all the books that one could cram into a single shopping bag for $5.  I eventually added a small reclining chair, area rug, and curtains that colored the sunlight peach as it poured through the sheer fabric.

My husband carpeted his spare room with clothes, empty beer bottles, cigarette ashes, and unpacked boxes that had traveled back with him from Germany.  In the two years we lived there he cleaned the room once so that he could move in the new gym equipment that we'd purchased at a local Sears. "You don't need this," the saleswoman had said, looking at us skeptically. "Y'all are already in shape."  We should have listened to the seeds of Southern wisdom.

I was soon to discover that putting anything together was an event for my husband. He'd turn the AC on arctic, roll up his sleeves, scatter every screw across the floor, and spend hours swearing over the instruction manual, grunting as he tightened bolts, occasionally asking for my help, which meant I'd inadvertently hold the pieces a centimeter in the wrong direction and his anger would rise up like a mushroom cloud. "Go in the other room," he'd shout with an urgency I didn't dare disobey. Over the years this process was repeated with everything that carried the warning "assembly required," however, the home gym always stood out as the most onerous. It took three days before he'd finally managed to assemble it.

Once it was assembled he suggested we work out together. 20 minutes in, he was yelling at me like a drill sergeant. I gave up and retreated to my library. To say that he used the gym a handful of times over the next year and a half that we were in Georgia would probably be generous. It was a place to hang wet clothes and a table for beer bottles and ashtrays. It was a colossal waste of space, time, and money.

Hoping to get a teaching job before the next school year, I returned to Massachusetts several months ahead of my husband. Before I left I packed up everything I knew he wouldn't be using so that the move would not be so burdensome. The day that he and his closest friend were piling our belongings into a Budget rental truck to drive north, he called in a rush to say he'd broken the kitchen table. I had images of him slamming his fist straight through the center, sending the wood splintering, when really, it turned out, he'd just broken the leg off.

Back in Massachusetts, his friend parked the Budget truck in front of my brother's house, where I was living at the time, and left in my husband's car to do something urgent that I can't recall. After they'd left, my brother helped me lift the sliding door in the back. Everything inside was tilted forward and on the verge of spilling over the tailgate at any moment. My can opener randomly fell out into the street.

I learned later that when it was time to move, he'd worked on breaking down the gym first. It took him eight hours, he said, to dismantle it. The awkward metal poles and plastic plates were the first thing he put into the truck. Everything else was hurriedly packed in without regard. For years after, I discovered more and more things that got left behind on the curb. Among the items, an end table my father had crafted in a high school shop class that he'd given to me to take to Georgia. My husband complained incessantly about my books, which, he claimed, had taken up so much room that he had no choice but to pile everything in. 

It was a sweltering August afternoon when we moved everything from the rental truck into a storage space. Sweat soaked the front of my shirt and left salt rings in the fabric. I've always been one for order and finding tetris tight patterns and gladly directed the moving into the concrete garage. By the time the three of us had heaved everything except the gym down the narrow truck ramp we were exhausted, annoyed, sweat-soaked, dehydrated. Something broke-- a plastic piece perhaps-- as he tried to lift a piece of the gym from the truck and his anger that had been rising with the temperature all afternoon, erupted. In a fit of swears, he yelled that we'd just leave the entire gym outside of the storage place on the side of the road. I spoke to him in a voice I'd recently discovered teaching inner-city high school students, a voice I didn't know I had. I pointed away from the truck and sharp and loud ordered him to go for a walk and calm down. In that instant something shifted. He stopped moving and stared at me in surprise. His best friend receded into the distance to smoke a cigarette. After a while breaking the silence I said, "You left half of our things for trash in Georgia, and broke almost everything we own for this stupid gym. We are not leaving it on the street now." That moment might have been the only time he ever conceded without arguing, without even speaking. We loaded the gym into the storage unit in silence, speaking only to say "lift your end up" or "move it to the right."

Two months later, we'd finally found jobs and an apartment with a spare room that could accommodate the gym. He set it up surprisingly quick in the front room that let in the most light. He worked the overnight shift 9 PM to 5 AM, and I was working two jobs from 7 AM to 7 PM, so we barely crossed paths. If I had to guess I'd say he probably used the gym another handful of times while I was at work that year. For a while, I started waking up at 5 AM to find time to work out and thought using the gym might be a way to make everything we'd gone through to get it there worthwhile. I never really cared for it and after a while even I stopped using it.

My husband told me he was moving out in April last year. He stayed around for another month, hardly lifting a finger to pack up his things until the day before he finally left. The only thing he packed up in the month that he lingered around were the letters I'd sent to him every single day while he was stationed in Georgia, then Germany, deployed to Iraq, and back to Georgia. There were hundreds of them. They were the one thing he bothered to get rid of, claiming he was going to burn them all. At 8 PM the day before he left, he started packing his clothes away, only stopping at midnight when I reminded him I had to get up for work the next day.

When he walked out he left the DVD rack, but he took all of the DVDs. He left the picture frames on our mantel, but took away the pictures. Most of his clothes went too, but many of them hung around in the closet. It was six months after he left that he finally came back for more of his things, which I'd piled into the front spare room around the gym. It was just a few weeks ago that he admitted he wouldn't be returning for any of the gym equipment or other things left laying around my apartment.

Whether it ends up in someone else's home, cut into scrap metal pieces, or donated to the Salvation Army will not matter. The important thing is that I will have lifted this heavy burden from my heart for the last time.