On remembering things not to remember.
It should have been an ordinary day. It started out like any other. I made scrambled eggs with coconut oil and spinach. I fed Aria a raw meat chicken patty. I got dressed and brushed my teeth.
I remembered the bathroom with its awful purple paint. I always wanted to paint it a different color.
I packed up my lunch for the day. Chicken tenders, bean salad, a banana.
I noticed the yellow ceramic container on my bedside table. I used to keep it on my dresser. In that house, I always spritzed perfume on my neck and wrists in the mornings before work. In this house, I often forget. When did that habit change? Why?
I got into my car, turned on the radio and made the 30 minute drive down the QEW. I couldn't find a song I liked, so I kept scanning the stations.
I remembered how he disliked 102.1 The Edge and got tired of the stories from the Dean Blundell Show that I shared with him in the evenings after work. How many times did I find him wearing his favourite blue t-shirt in the black leather chair in the office?
I made the brisk walk into work.
He would still be sleeping at this time. Underneath the grey comforter that we bought together and on top of the blue sheets we hurriedly picked out at the Bay.
I walked into my office and found an IT guy ready to switch out my computer. I let the IT guy back-up all of the files on my computer and I waited for my new computer to be ready. And when it was, I thought it might be a good time to sort through my personal photos and delete the ones I no longer need.
Scout on the golden couch in Bancroft. Scout and Aria in the guest bedroom at the cottage. Andrew sleeping on the black leather couch. The "chiles" poster that hangs above the fireplace. Photos of me taken right before my half-marathon. Scout curled up on my blue TNA hoodie. The stop in at a quaint restaurant for Easter lunch on our way home. The red hair. "Strawberry blonde," he always insisted.
And I'm transported back to a different lifetime, a time and place that still seem within reach despite the fact that they are not. So close to my memory that I can still close my eyes and conjure those memories, those moments, those experiences, those feelings... I still remember lazy evenings at home with Scout purring on my chest and Aria watching nearby.
And yet, I feel like an ocean: my tides ebb and flow and I know that those memories which linger in my head will always lie somewhere at the bottom of my deep blue ocean, but now, now the tide is about to turn, a new wave is about to come crashing down and the currents of life will swirl and shift because life is moving, life is not stagnant, life is not constant. What was cannot be again. Something new awaits me now. A new present and a new future lie just around the corner.
I remembered the bathroom with its awful purple paint. I always wanted to paint it a different color.
I packed up my lunch for the day. Chicken tenders, bean salad, a banana.
I noticed the yellow ceramic container on my bedside table. I used to keep it on my dresser. In that house, I always spritzed perfume on my neck and wrists in the mornings before work. In this house, I often forget. When did that habit change? Why?
I got into my car, turned on the radio and made the 30 minute drive down the QEW. I couldn't find a song I liked, so I kept scanning the stations.
I remembered how he disliked 102.1 The Edge and got tired of the stories from the Dean Blundell Show that I shared with him in the evenings after work. How many times did I find him wearing his favourite blue t-shirt in the black leather chair in the office?
I made the brisk walk into work.
He would still be sleeping at this time. Underneath the grey comforter that we bought together and on top of the blue sheets we hurriedly picked out at the Bay.
I walked into my office and found an IT guy ready to switch out my computer. I let the IT guy back-up all of the files on my computer and I waited for my new computer to be ready. And when it was, I thought it might be a good time to sort through my personal photos and delete the ones I no longer need.
Scout on the golden couch in Bancroft. Scout and Aria in the guest bedroom at the cottage. Andrew sleeping on the black leather couch. The "chiles" poster that hangs above the fireplace. Photos of me taken right before my half-marathon. Scout curled up on my blue TNA hoodie. The stop in at a quaint restaurant for Easter lunch on our way home. The red hair. "Strawberry blonde," he always insisted.
And I'm transported back to a different lifetime, a time and place that still seem within reach despite the fact that they are not. So close to my memory that I can still close my eyes and conjure those memories, those moments, those experiences, those feelings... I still remember lazy evenings at home with Scout purring on my chest and Aria watching nearby.
And yet, I feel like an ocean: my tides ebb and flow and I know that those memories which linger in my head will always lie somewhere at the bottom of my deep blue ocean, but now, now the tide is about to turn, a new wave is about to come crashing down and the currents of life will swirl and shift because life is moving, life is not stagnant, life is not constant. What was cannot be again. Something new awaits me now. A new present and a new future lie just around the corner.