READY.
As I sit, winded by emotion, loss, and resilience – all the while, whiskey and (homemade) soda in hand at the dining room table I’ve sat in front of, my entire life. The four legs of sanded, varnished, worn, creaky and sticky wood passed from my grandparents to my parents to me…
I am ready.
The table itself is falling apart. I mean it when I say it’s creaky and sticky. Those are probably the two most accurate ways to describe this table. I sat in this very spot as a child, with cats attempting to lap the remnants of milk out of my cereal bowls. Even then, the chairs were falling apart. Though, I have no recollection of my parents repairing the chairs in the ways I do when the legs come loose – by smacking them back into place with a swift kick, hoping they will stay secure through another season.
I used to scratch the, perhaps poisonous 1960’s varnish off of these chairs with delight – the ease and success of my fingernails strength was profound at age 8. I celebrated birthdays, ate new foods and studied for tests at this table – homework sprawled from each of the round, wooden edges. There are paint drips, pain, and an etherial bit of feeling kept in the wood, pressed and sealed like secrets.
I heard of my parents divorce at this table.
And prior to that, my father came out of the closet just footsteps away to it. I can still see it reflecting light from the windows and then-Brad eating ice cream so calm and collected.
When I inherited this table in my late twenties, I carved pumpkins with the people I love the most surrounding me. There are still some crusty pumpkin guts dried on the surface, and the sounds of their laughter echo in my head each time I rub my hands over the immovable textures.
And more recently, I dined daily across from a man, with whom I perhaps will love forever – and with whom I will be forever misunderstood by. It is for this reason, I have come to acknowledge, I can no longer be with him. We have loved fully, argued until we are blue in the face and most recently, we ended things right here – in the same spot I ate breakfast at, every day of my life.
So here I am at 30. A new decade.
30 is like the new 21, right??
Whether or not it is, it’s a new decade for me. I’m feeling old enough to give advice on reddit, but not old enough to really know if any of it is accurate. And this year has been really hard. The year of corona. The year of isolation. The year I recall I’m not really doing anything right, but I’m doing everything right. I’m feeling more like a stranger from myself than anyone else, and that is saying a lot because I haven’t seen my friends and family for nearly five months.
But I’ve seen him.
He, my lover, my roommate, my best friend, my everything.
Nothing will replace this loss, nothing except time – for so many unmentioned reasons. And until then, music will carry me to the next location. Color will light me up when all I see is black, and the love I have will persist, grow and change with every step forward.
It’s only my mind that I’m losing.
