SavageTimes

A long time ago, when my marriage was young and forever stretched ahead of me like the most perfect romance novel ever written, my grandmother-in-law promised my husband and I her crystal stemware collection which she and her husband had since the 1940s.

Flash forward some twenty years, when my ex came by the house to pick up some of his things, and he mentioned he’d be back to pick up “his” crystal. He hadn’t asked for a lot in our divorce: he gave me the house, didn’t make me go through a painful sorting of what was his and what was mine.  He wanted what he came with, so to speak, and the stuff he’d picked up along the way that was definitely his and not “ours” or “mine.” And the crystal was technically “his,” and his family’s heritage.

I protested a bit–something about the kids liking it, but that was more about the fact that using the crystal water glasses was easier than rinsing out one of the thousands of regular glasses they had already used in a day–but of course I acquiesced.

My ex probably saw the panic attack blooming in my face–he may have been clueless about many pieces of who I was, but my smile-and-nod-going-with-the-program faces were always transparent to him–because he left and never came back with packing boxes, never brought it up again.

Last weekend, a dear friend whom I’ve known since high school came into town, and along with another dear high school friend who lives a half hour away, we had a mini-reunion of three and tried very hard to make up for all the parties in high school that we missed (that would be me, really).

If I feel worlds away from that girl I was when we all met, I feel like I lived in a parallel universe from the distraught, broken, scared puddle of goo I was last year when my life turned upside down and sideways. Who that sad lady was coming home from a run to fall onto the carpet and scream to the heavens with rage and heartbreak and lostness, I have no clue.

Not even shoes made that chick happy.

I was certain my dear friend, whom I haven’t seen since 1992, wouldn’t recognize me.

But all three of us clicked just like we had some thirty years ago–in fact, better: whatever it was that made us love each other in the first place is still there, along with wisdom, and openness, and an ease in our own skins. And laughter. So much laughter.

While I have an amazing network of friends across the country and fabulous friends here who have held my hand through the last few years, wiped my tears, gotten me out of the house and brought me so much joy, laughter and love, being with these two people who knew me from way back when…settled something inside of me.

While drifting in and out of my party-like-its-1985-but-without-the-1985-body hangover on Sunday, the thought crossed my mind that maybe it was time to let go of some things.

I had moved on in a manner of speaking last summer. I’d packed stuff up, I put away my ring, I used a sledgehammer to take down his wardrobe and the bed (sledgehammers are so much more efficient than screwdrivers….).

But inside, deep down, in the core where I kept the whole of me….I was still holding on to what I’d once imagined my life would be.  I was still holding on to that damn crystal.

Yesterday, I looked at it and realized I didn’t want it there, relics of the life I used to have. I wanted this house to be my place, not the house I shared with my husband.  I imagined someday having someone new to share my life with: I could share this house; it was mine.  I couldn’t imagine us drinking out of my ex’s family crystal.

Today, I bought boxes and bubble wrap and packing peanuts.

I could let go of the past and still be me.  Better, even.  I am still the same. Just an improved version.

Tonight, I packed up the crystal.