washwords

I stand on the platform waiting for the Red line.

The old men in Washington Senators jackets make me chuckle, eyes that reveal themselves as boys. The summer sundresses, click of heels, remind me that it is not winter, that I have a garden waiting and more sunny walks to take, and friends to linger drinking margaritas and half-priced bottles of wine with.

I’m late to work and too sleepy to be too worried.

As i walk downstairs the train I need pulls away and I see blurs of colors and co-Metro-ers: high school class trippers, other late workers, baseball’s-return celebrators, meeting-goers, giggling couples, k-street execs.

I take a left rather than right at the bottom of the escalator, moving away from the clusters of people that will gather in the long five minutes till the next train.

The Red Line to Shady Grove, going the opposite direction of mine, zooms past. And here is what I see: A man my age, dressed casual, alone, carrying just one object: The largest container they make of Scope Blue Mouthwash.

you’re going through all this” you tell me. “I hope these things move out of your life soon.”

As if I’m a stranger. As if you are. As if these things that have moved into my life fell from the sky like raindrops, irritating, but soon to pass.

I ponder, write and rewrite how to respond. Knowing I won’t get any closures, answers, epiphanies. Knowing I should let it go, be the bigger person, move on.

But the thing is, there WAS something you could do to help. You could have told me about her. You could have not gone on the trip. You could have been “honest, honest, honest” like your profile STILL on the site reads. You could have been open to the possibility of loving me, or at least not needed adoration, admiring disciples so much.

And the question, unfaceitious, unhysterical, completely sincere remains. Why?

I hope you will tell me the rest before it hits. Like a truck. From nowhere. Again. From police reports or message archives (that turn my stomach!) or the gods at Lexis.Nexis. I expect that you won’t, but I must ask all the same.

I’m having the best day I have so far this week, cleaning up, straightening out. Onward and Upward. Other Fish in the Sea. Wasn’t meant to be. I’m Doing the Right Thing.

I’m putting away new shoes, folding fresh towels to celebrate clean starts, living with just me. And then I get to the sweatshirt.

The sweatshirt. Grey and red, with its three letters, latin writing. It’s two, maybe three sizes too big for me. He had it, I imagine, since he started grad school, since shortly after his son was born, nearly 10 years before I met him. We joked, him laughing, saying “Is that really even mine now? I think it belongs to you.”

And when we did the final analysis, the “logistics” of our separation, he told me, “You should just keep it.” I nodded, through blurry swollen eyes.

I wore it for the first time on our wondrous weeklong getaway, just weeks after meeting him He said “I know, I know, its way too soon for a trip, way too soon especially for a WEDDING trip for my friends. But if you’re not there I’m just going to be missing you and thinking about you the whole time.” I bought my ticket before I hung up the phone.

I had sweatshirts of my own on that trip but chose to wear his. I’m wearing it in that picture by the waterfall, with my fisherman hat and sparkling eyes. Loving that we took that plunge to do the crazy trip, loving that we made couple friends, had journeys, never ran out of excitement or energy or conversation. Loved that I was falling into loving him.

His eyes, arms wrapped tight around me, sparkle back. In his own trademark fleece. The one he asked me and every sales clerk within listening distance of the outlet malls if he could wear to his new job. The new job I got him. He deserved it and more. But I made it happen. And four days before he started there, we were over.

I press the sweatshirt to me, smelling his laundry soap on it, feeling for a moment that i could put it on, have him holding me again. On that twinkling bridge by the water fall when our eyes sparkled and possibility draped over branches.

Then I fold it up and put it on my second highest closet shelf, on top of two other grey and burgundy sweatshirts.

There’s the gray one with thin burgundy stripes, just my size though I’d wished it were bigger, the one I can still picture my ex-husband wearing in college, with sweatpants or jeans, late in the newspaper office, or years later on our bed, wrapped in his brown blanket.

And the burgundy one from my MREB.* Well till now. MREB brought the sweatshirt for me to have at his mom’s knowing I’d be cold and then forgot was his, packing it in a bag of socks and hairdryers and books of mine he returned some months later.

I climb the stepladder, fold it gently once more, smooth it down. Then climb down, close the door and breathe. I am not cold, for a change.



*most recent ex-boyfriend