Pieces of yarn.

When does the mourning of an ended relationship stop?

While packing my suitcase to return home yesterday morning, my eyes settled on the clump of yarn attached to the handle, one of those things people do to distinguish their bags from the hundreds of others on the airport baggage carousel.

With their varying shades of browns, oranges and creams, the yarn instantly reminded me of Mike. The yarn came from his mother. I don't know why I know this, but it's just one of those things that seeps into your memory when you are not looking over the course of a 17-year relationship.

Even now, two and a half years after officially ending the "partner" part of our relationship, little insignificant things like yarn on a suitcase make me mourn. I'm drawn into memories of all of the other seemingly insignificant things that, when taken together, comprise a life. The mother-in-law who provided the yarn, the trip to San Francisco for which this particular piece of luggage was purchased. That leads to the quick photos we took of each other hanging off the side of the cable cars. Sitting in the grass in Alamo Square, taking in the Painted Ladies.

Pondering this from the chair of my hotel room, all these memories started to spiral around in my mind, drawing me down as water in a drain. Simple pieces of colored yarn can have a not-so-simple effect on my mood.

These memories bring to the fore all that I have given up by ending the relationship. Even as I sit in the library of the hotel, handwriting the first version of what you are now reading, I am on the verge of tears. Tears for the life that I chose to alter so dramatically.

Will this ever stop?

Comments

[christine]

Happens to me a lot - especially re: my fiance who never was my husband. He HAUNTS my dreams. All the what-if's and wonder-whats. Normal - this reflection - at least it is evidence that we love(d).