In which I feel a little stupid.

On my wedding day, my mother said, “He’ll make a good first husband.” I scowled at her before I laughed, but she was, of course, totally right. He did make a good first husband. Our breakup has been so smooth, really, considering how terribly it could have gone.

Last night after dinner, I drove out to the farm and got a load of stuff out of The Ex’s house. He helped me pack and load, and further offered to drive a truckload of my furniture into town and help me get it up the stairs into my room. And after we got the jeep loaded, we sat and had a nice chat.

I was driving homeward an hour later, the jeep redolent with the smell of incense, the sun setting fantastically in pinks, oranges, and purples, the humid air blowing.

I brought only one box inside the house with me when I got home – my puja stuff – because my shit is so utterly filthy that AmmZon would absolutely have kittens if I brought it inside the way it is. It’s been stored in an empty room for a year, but in order for you to visualize how utterly dirty, dusty, and cobwebby it is you’d do better to understand that it had been stored, unboxed, in a barn for a year. Everything is covered in dust, cobwebs, and pet hair (and when I say ‘covered,’ I mean there’s an eighth of an inch of dust on every single surface). Everything has to be at the very least wiped off, if not actually washed before it can be used again.

No doubt the clothes I’d left are utterly ruined. Oh, well. All I really want is my altar & puja stuff, my books, my hard drive enclosure, the rest of my jewelry, my beloved vintage cameras, a few kitchen items, and three pieces of furniture; everything else can go bad as it wills.

I hope to God my electronics weren’t moved into that room before the deep part of winter, because I don’t know what a hard freeze would do to a hard drive.

Before I drove home, I asked to use the bathroom. The Ex said sure. I went through the old living room, now an abandoned mess, and into the downstairs bath. Hmm, there’s a brand new rug on the floor. Nice. And it’s cleaner than it’s ever been: also very nice. A woman’s swim suit was drying on the towel bar. A hairdryer and curling iron on the counter. And oh, hey, he hung a cabinet in there (I won’t mention the ‘he never did that for me’ pang I felt). The cabinet’s door was loose so I glanced in when leaning to wash my hands: yup. Stuffed full of Kotex. So yeah, he’s not just seeing someone: he’s got her moved in, and our marriage hasn’t been over a full year until next month. (He’d moved in with me within a week, so perhaps he’s just a habitual co-habitator.)

Good for him, really, but boy do I feel a little stupid. I stayed so fucking long and tried so fucking hard, breaking myself in the process… it seems that I really didn’t need to. He was happily getting laid a few months after I left, and now he has a new woman installed in his house who is, presumably, cleaning his bathroom and screwing his brains out, which is pretty much all he wants out of life. It certainly didn’t have to be me for as long as it was. God, I wish I’d known.

The point is not that a proper mourning period wasn’t observed, nor that he’s moving on. I still genuinely want him to have what he wants out of his life. I’m just somewhat embarrassed to report that I’ve been so quickly and easily replaced; if I’d known it was so easy to do maybe I’d have done it much earlier, and perhaps hurt myself less.

~+~+~
The good news is that I started bringing some of my things inside today, and I like them and they represent me. Most of them stayed stashed in my office because he didn’t like them and they didn’t represent him, and then I abandoned them for a year, so it was like unpacking myself. Ah, yes, these things, I remember them! They’re part of who I really am! I realize stuff doesn’t define a person, but it does help us remember what we think we are. My stuff makes me happy, and seeing it and placing it in the space I occupy is reminding me of the woman I was before I met The Ex, and that’s not a bad thing at all.