75: Pamphlets

After we were married, my husband and I went to the Coast Guard base in Boston so that I could register officially as his wife and receive health benefits. My father insisted on driving us over and he parked at the gate while we went inside to the second floor office. As we waited for the woman working in the ID office to set up her computer to take my picture, my husband scanned over the rack of pamphlets on her desk. He began pulling them out one-by-one saying, "I need this and this" under his breath. When I glanced over at the titles on the pamphlets and saw stress, drinking alcohol, and quit smoking I had to hold back a laugh. The woman at the desk was completely unfazed by his behavior and hardly glanced up at him as he reached for more booklets. When the computer was ready she asked me my height and weight. After, when I saw both printed clearly on the back of my ID card that I would use for the next two years to get on post and buy groceries, I regretted telling the truth about my weight. I weighed five pounds more than I would have liked to. I remember thinking then that I looked muscular and strong, but when I look back at my wedding pictures I look thin and frail.

After we left the coast guard base I made fun of him for taking all the pamphlets. I said something about him having a lot of problems. He left them behind in my bedroom before going back to Germany. I kept them because they brought a smile to my face when I recalled the day he took them. I wish he'd taken them more seriously or cared more for his health. He might have saved himself from suffering so much if he had.

74: Hair

A note on my absence from this blog: I decided this summer after the massive removal of things from my house that I would continue this blog until I'd eliminated 108 things from my home. The number is significant in Buddhism and since this process has been both spiritual and physical, I thought it appropriate to end with the number of beads on a full mala to signify a complete set of mantras, a single circle, a rebirth.  Several weeks ago I felt that I had overcome all of the feelings associated with going through a divorce and no longer had the desire to expose the past here. I felt as if I'd moved beyond the pain, anger, and suffering that I'd been trying to move through and beyond for a year and a half. My recent court date to finalize the divorce has brought back all the emotions I thought I'd overcome. I'm through with silent sulking, well at least for the moment, and returning to this blog, at least temporarily. I can't promise consistency as even if I found a way to live without sleeping I still don't think there would be enough time to accomplish all that I expect from myself in a single day. Alas, I must also let go of something from my over-flowing to-do list; I must pare it down so that only what is most important remains.

*

A year and half ago, two months before my husband said he was leaving me, I decided to cut and donate my hair. I'd been growing it out for nine years, partly as a protest against my mother who had trimmed off too much my senior year in high school and partly because my husband asked me to keep it long. I'd wanted to cut it for a while-- I was finding it harder to handle daily as I tried to combat the frizz on rainy days, sweep up stray strands on the bathroom floor, and wipe away the sticky, sweaty feeling of it draped across my neck at the gym.  I worried though that if I cut it off it might be the last straw, the last strand holding my marriage together. Maybe losing my locks would make me unattractive and be the thing that made him leave. It seems silly to place so much importance on hair, but I do wonder if cutting away thirteen inches wasn't another ax at the already splintered tree.  Despite my fears, I made the cut. I left the hairdresser feeling light and free and half-skipped the block to my house. When I opened the door and met the gaze of my then-husband he started laughing hysterically, a loud, shrieking laughter that drove me with tears in my eyes into the bathroom to cry behind a closed door. When I told my friend how he had reacted and how fearful I was to return to work and face my brutally honest ninth graders she consoled me, "Don't worry. I think you'll find most people aren't that insensitive."

I grew my hair out again for warmth in the winter, to make it long enough to donate again, and really because I couldn't care less about fashion or fixing the same hairstyle I'd worn for most of my life.  A month or so ago I read an article by a stylist who claimed the bob was the hairstyle that would fit any woman's face. The article included a brief video where an over-exuberant, blonde-haired host told a story of her newly divorced friend who had chopped her hair off and looked terrible with the new do. She turned to the camera, addressed all future divorced women, and warned them to get a bob if they were planning a radical change. As much as I hate to admit that I actually spent five minutes watching a girly fashion video and considering a new hairdo, I didn't forget the advice and have been contemplating the cut for more than a month.

Last week on the day of the divorce, my husband and I sat on a too-hard wooden bench in a room with four other couples, waiting for a judge to show up and begin the process. The judge arrived an hour late. I was hoping to pass the time silently staring out the large windows facing the benches, but my husband struck up conversation in his Irish whisper. As the hour neared its end and conversation lagged, he turned to me and asked if I was growing my hair out again. I glanced down at the ends that reached mid-way down my chest and said no. Despite not wanting to fulfill society's stereotype about divorced women, I cut 12 inches off my hair just a few days after the court determined my marriage had suffered an irretrievable breakdown.

I took the advice of the yahoo fashion expert and asked the hairdresser to cut my hair into a bob. In the chair without my glasses on, I watched as my blurry strands fell away. I asked her to cut off eight inches so that I could donate it. She said she would cut ten. When my ponytail was bundled in elastics and laid out over the ruler she had cut away nearly 12 inches. As she shaped the ends the final pieces of the foot fell away. I thought of how I would be heading home to an empty house and tried to feel good about the fact that I wouldn't be met with laughter, but really I just wanted to cry. As with my last haircut, the initial jubilee wore off within a few hours and as I stood before the mirror I couldn't help but think I looked like a boy. I'd already lost my husband and reasoned that now I'd lost my chances of finding a date for the next year and a half or until my hair was once again at a desirable length.

This morning as the first chill of fall settled into my apartment over the cracks in the windowsills, I pulled a hood over my head as soon as I stepped out of bed. After breakfast I showered and took to trying to blow dry my hair into the salon worthy fashion the hairdresser had created. When I was finished it looked nothing like it did yesterday. I felt cold, alone, exposed. I went to the kitchen and reached for the scarf I'd handmade in high school to wrap around my neck.

I can't recall if it was before or after my last haircut, but it was winter time nonetheless when I reached for my scarf on the hook in the kitchen. My husband was standing nearby and he watched as I struggled to tie the scarf around my neck. I said something about how I could never seem to make it feel comfortable. "Here," he said taking the scarf in his over-sized hands, "just do this." He folded the scarf, wrapped it around my neck, and pulled the ends through the loop he'd formed with an effortlessness that could come only from practice. He never wore a scarf. In an instant I knew his hands had made the same motion many times before; he had tied a scarf for his girlfriend. Then, the only evidence I had of her was intuition and he was quick to dismiss my doubt. I stared at him, the scarf poised under my chin and managed to ask how he knew what to do. "What tie a scarf?" he asked. "I see the nurses at work doing it all the time." And then I knew, his girlfriend was someone he worked with. His over-time, late-night shifts, and sleeping over at the hospital suddenly made too much sense. I wanted to rip off the scarf when I walked outside and felt the cold sting the tears in my eyes.

This morning as I reached for the scarf I thought of the day he had tied it for me. I wrapped it around myself, just as he'd shown me, pulling the knot up to my throat so the crocheted yarn would cover my naked neck.  Cutting my hair, I'd cut off the security blanket that I reached for and wrapped tighter around my neck as needed. Without it I feel exposed, vulnerable. The reality of it all though is that no matter how long my hair or how tight my scarf, I won't  be able to fill the emptiness I feel in my heart.  

73: Christmas Cards

From childhood on, I always loved Christmas. I'd count down the days way too early, listen to holiday music on the radio, perform in a local production of The Nutcracker, hand make cards and gifts (many of which I never completed and are still sitting unfinished in my craft bins), and spend hours walking through the seasonal aisles in stores. My high school, junior-year English teacher had us compete against each other in a holiday trivia game and I won the stocking filled with school supplies in my class.

My first year working in retail for the holidays, I remember walking through the Prudential Center in Boston and feeling excited as they rolled in the giant gold ornaments, towering fake Christmas trees, and unstrung rows of lights. They started playing holiday music long before Thanksgiving and I'd take out my headphones to hear the cheesy tunes. My boyfriend would be home from basic training that year and I was excited to spend time with him. I counted down not only the days to the holiday that year, but to his arrival date. I was hired as seasonal help, but was told I'd be able to stay on in January if I performed my job well. I showed up every day with too much enthusiasm for rearranging the stocking stuffers that cluttered the front end of the store, dusting bookshelves, cashiering hundreds of customers a day, and selling the savings card that cost $25.  Half the seasonal staff were cut after New Years, but I stayed on for another four years.

The first year I worked in the bookstore I wanted to buy everything with my 30% discount.  The Robert Sabuda children's pop-up books were really popular and every time I pushed one into a bag I had to talk myself out of buying one. When I was asked to straighten the holiday card table I came across the blue snowflake covered tin above and discovered that they were filled with a set of Sabuda pop-up cards.  I set the tin aside for myself and bought them before leaving work that day. Once home, I carefully slipped off the cardboard covering, pulled up the plastic lining, slid the plastic ring from each stack of cards, and opened every piece of folded paper. After opening the cards, I replaced the plastic rings, plastic covering, and tin lid. I thought they were too special to send with presents and kept them in the corner of my room, collecting dust, for years.

I don't remember when I lost enthusiasm for the holiday I once loved; I think it may have just happened gradually. Buying gifts for people who didn't seem to want anything, cooking, baking, having to spend time with my family and my husband's seemed like more work than it was worth. The days of skipping downstairs in my pajamas, opening gifts, and playing on the living room floor while my mother cooked calamari and ravioli in the kitchen were over years ago. Things were so much simpler as a child.

This past Christmas, my first one in nine years as a single woman, I didn't put up the tree or pull out the decorations that just reminded me of my ex-husband. I gave away all of the cookies I baked, and barely pulled myself out of bed and into my brother's house to celebrate. Even though my husband had left me six months earlier, the wound felt freshly opened. I felt like a fraud celebrating a holiday for a religion I don't adhere to or believe in. I considered leaving the country for the week off, but thought my family would be devastated.

I've gotten rid of a few Christmas things, including the tin of pop-up cards that I never planned on using, and will try to sell or give away the rest of the decorations as the holiday approaches. One thing that comes out of unintentional life changes like divorce or loss is that you are forced to rethink and change your routine. It can be too easy to go along with things just because that's how they've always been and how they're expected to be. Perhaps this year I'll find a way to honor who I've become while respecting who my family expects me to be. 

72: Styrofoam Coffee Cup

My boyfriend and I spent most of the first year of our relationship sitting outside in a park or on the steps of the abandoned church near my house. When the weather was bad, we'd walk to Dunkin' Donuts to buy coffees. We'd sit across from each other, sipping the steaming liquid, holding hands across the table, and gazing into each others' eyes. When he went away to basic training and later was stationed in Germany, I avoided the store we'd frequented together because being there would remind me how much I missed him.

While he was away, Dunkin' Donuts started offering more than just Hazelnut and French Vanilla flavored coffee. They had a dozen different syrups to add to any beverage. I'd treat myself sometimes to a blueberry flavored coffee and when he was home on leave, my boyfriend ordered caramel.

To advertise the new flavors, they started printing mystical messages on the sides of the Styrofoam cups. The design included information about what personality traits you had if you liked a certain flavor and who your best matches were. Blueberry was the "mystic match" for caramel. In a long-distance relationship, I took silly signs like this as indication that we were meant to be together, that things would work out and we'd be happy when we could finally live together. As the years went by, the less I listened to and looked for these "signs," the more I noticed we weren't inseparable soul mates who never worried about argument or discord.

71: Magnet

My husband could never wait until Christmas or birthdays to open presents. When he was a kid, he'd slide a knife under the tape careful not to rip the wrapping paper, open his gifts, then re-wrap them before placing them back where he'd found them. His mother never found out and if she did it probably would have been the end of her buying gifts for him.

In the weeks leading up to any-gift-giving occasion, he would haunt me with questions trying to guess what he'd gotten. He was always eager for me to open presents early even though I preferred to wait and be surprised. We settled the disagreement on Christmas by giving each other several smaller gifts each day in the week leading up to the holiday.

For the first two years of our marriage we flew home from Georgia to spend a week in December with our families. We weren't able to establish our own holiday tradition and felt torn between who to spend time with. No one was ever happy at the end of the week and someone would always feel that we hadn't spent enough time with them. After two years of stress and chaos, we wanted to make our first Christmas together in Massachusetts special. We planned to spend the morning together alone before going to our families' houses. 

He worked the over-night shift on Christmas Eve and got home at 5:30 in the morning. He slammed his way into the house and came to wake me up like an excited child. He insisted that we open gifts before he went to sleep. For three months I had worked two jobs and twelve hour days, not counting the prep work and papers I took home nights and weekends, and was grateful to have a week to sleep in before dragging myself to the car dealership where I worked in the afternoon. I argued with him that we could wait to open gifts, but he persisted, shaking me and begging, "Come on," until I rolled out of bed and into the living room.

My eyes were barely open as I pulled the paper off the presents and watched him open his gifts. We went to sleep as soon as we were finished and when I woke up a few hours later I couldn't recall what he had given me. 

The magnet pictured above was one of the smaller presents he gave to me that year in the week leading up to December 25th. When I unwrapped the paper, saw the picture of the over-flowing laundry basket, and read the lines beneath: "Women, because this shit ain't folding itself," I threw myself backward from a seated position to the floor and laughed loud and long. I placed it on the side of the fridge by the kitchen sink where I stood to wash and dry dishes after cooking dinner every night.

After a year of working two jobs and coming home to a sink full of dirty dishes, crumbs and food left out on the kitchen table, piles of clothes strewn across the kitchen and bedroom floors, and beer bottles left in every room of the house, the magnet no longer seemed funny.  I started to confront him about his habits that first year because I was growing weary of cleaning up after him and didn't know how much longer I could sustain it.  I started working one job and he switched to working days, but the mess he left behind only got worse. He'd go to the gym every day after work and leave his soaking wet clothes all over the floor when he got home. They'd collect for weeks before he'd take them to the basement to wash and dry them. His clean clothes never made it out of the hamper unless I found and folded them.

One night, after teaching high school all morning and attending an afternoon meeting, I stopped home for dinner before having to be back at the school from 6-8 for parent-teacher night. I came in to find dirty dishes cluttering the sink, crumbs on the counter, cabinet doors left wide open, a pile of dirty clothes on the kitchen floor in front of the coffee pot, and a toilet that he'd left unflushed.  I spent most of the half-hour I had cleaning up his mess, then barely had time to shove down some salad greens before driving back to work.  As I ran the dishes in the sink under water and piled them in the drying rack I glanced over at the magnet and sighed.   I felt as dirty and discarded as the sweat-soaked jock strap lying in the middle of the kitchen floor.

When he'd come home from the gym at 9:30 at night I'd quietly tell him how worn down I was and how much I'd appreciate it if he could clean up after himself. Even putting clothes in the hamper would make a big difference, I said. Inevitably, this conversation that I repeated often in the last three years that we lived together would lead to an argument. He'd always say something about how he didn't have his own space even though his things took up the entire front room of our apartment, two large cabinets, and a giant walk-in closet. The thing he said most often was "You married me this way," as if my knowing he kept his bedroom a mess as a teenager made it acceptable for him to refuse to help out around the house as a married man.

I am not the same person I was when I first opened the magnet and threw my feet in the air like a laughing child. I no longer think that cooking dinner, doing laundry, and cleaning the house is the key to maintaining a happy marriage. I've realized that I don't need someone by my side to have a good time; in fact, I am most myself when I am among people who don't know me.  It's alone in a crowd of strangers that I can wear my hair wild, dance like I know what I'm doing, and sing as if my voice sounds strong and melodic.  I am learning to embrace the joy of accepting things as they are and not as I'd hoped they would be.

70: Red Sox Tickets

My father's hatred for the Red Sox began when he was a boy and Ted Williams did something that he found offensive.  He always routed for the Yankees, probably because they rivaled the Red Sox better than any other team. Children are impressionable and often adopt their parents' beliefs and values without question. I grew up cheering on the Yankees and my bias became even stronger after the Red Sox caused the restaurant where I was first employed to close down.

Like just about everyone else who lives in or around Boston, my husband was a Red Sox fan. It never really much mattered since we didn't watch the games together, but I was sure to get in a good dig any time the Yankees won.

A year before my husband left me I could see our marriage was failing, but I was still trying to cling to the idea that we would work things out. I thought if we went on date nights we could at least try to be happy together. The day after one of our talks that always ended in tears, I received an email from someone at work who was selling Red Sox tickets. I texted my husband and asked if he'd want to go and he agreed it would be a good time.

The day of the game I had an energy that comes only from excited anticipation. I'd never worn the lime green Red Sox t-shirt that he bought me five years prior for my twenty-first birthday.  I was sure he would have forgotten about it and was eager to surprise him by wearing it to the train station to pick him up. I stopped at Walgreens on the way home from work and bought a plain black baseball hat to wear to block the sun on the perfect 80 degree, late spring day.  I pulled out the lime green shirt from the bottom of my drawer, removed the official tag that was still hanging from the plastic piece on the collar, and pressed the wrinkles flat. It looked ridiculous on me, but I was willing to wear it because I thought that it might make my husband happy.

He was late leaving work and texted me to say that he might be working a double. I thought he might have forgotten about the game even though I'd been reminding him of it for months. He responded to say he didn't want to go anymore. I felt my body go limp with disappointment. He ended up leaving work late and insisted on walking home from the train station. I thought I'd be able to convince him to go once he got home, but he'd already made up his mind. It was Memorial Day and he was feeling the wounds of the friends he'd lost in and out of combat. I thought it might get his mind off things to go out and watch a game on a beautiful night, but he refused. I offered to do something different with him-- go out to eat or into Boston to walk around, anything except sit around the house and sulk, but he was adamant about staying home. He said something about how the Red Sox shirt didn't even fit me and went into the other room.

I went from practically skipping through the Walgreens parking lot, to wanting to break down and cry in a corner of my apartment.  Though he had good reason to be feeling upset, I couldn't help but think that the same thing would have happened if the tickets had been any other day. I knew then that our marriage wasn't going to make it much longer.

I never even took the tickets out of the envelope. They stayed between the pages of the planner in my purse for the rest of the year. Every time I opened the agenda book to write in a date the envelope would remind me of that night. At the end of the year I moved the agenda book to the bottom shelf in a closet that I rarely went in. Two years later, the agenda book and tickets were still inconspicuously taking up space in my home and heart. How freeing it is to let things go.

69: Bali Shag Receipt

In high school, my boyfriend rolled his own Bali Shag cigarettes because they were cheaper than a package of pre-made. He would sit in the back of classes before lunch, place the thin white rectangular paper on the desk, pinch tobacco between his thumb and index finger, pat it down, then lift the paper carefully up to his face. He rolled the bottom up first, flattened it back and forth against the tobacco, then curled the top down and sealed it with saliva. He'd put the rolled cigarette back in the package for lunch time. Once, his favorite history teacher called him aside after class and asked if he was rolling a joint in the back of the room. He took out the pack and showed the teacher it was just tobacco and was allowed to complete his daily ritual for the rest of the year. Ten years later, students aren't allowed outside for lunch, can't smoke on school property, and definitely don't roll their own cigarettes in class.

After months of watching the ritual, I rolled a cigarette for him. He said I did a great job, but he never asked me to do it again. His wide thumbs would always be colored yellow with nicotine and I could taste the tobacco in his kisses. After coughing and gagging in the kitchen at home where my mother, father, and brother all smoked, I didn't mind being around my boyfriend, even when he lit up in my car with the window up. After he went away to basic training, I stopped driving since I took the train to work and had no where else to go. My father would take the car out on the highway once in a while to keep it running. He found the filled ashtray, but left the burnt butts of the Camel Reds my boyfriend replaced the Bali Shag with after high school. My father thought maybe I was saving the crumpled filters for sentimental reasons.

I don't remember when I sent away for a can of Bali Shag, but my boyfriend must have been in Germany since cigarettes weren't allowed in basic training. I have no idea what would have possessed me to keep the receipt from the order, but it turned up again recently in my piles of mostly unimportant papers. The ashtray with already smoked cigarettes was emptied long ago, and recently my ex donated the car where he sat smoking for the first year of our relationship. With each object, however small it may be, I can feel one more thread of the cord holding us together falling away. Someday soon I know I will break away forever.