why does learning this shit hurt so much

So if I’m right about this, all of the manic spending that I did, all of the things I did to treat myself, all of the retail therapy that I did that never filled any kind of hole, all of the evidence of this that is sitting in the house that I am losing that I am having so much trouble sorting through.

And now that I am not living in that house, now that I am trying to do my very best to figure out how to dispose of all those things, and it is so difficult and making me feel so empty and so useless and so all alone like I am worth completely nothing, perhaps it is because I am not

That all of those things that I collected, that I bought in moments where I felt not enough, maybe it is that I feel that I will be even less than not enough if I get rid of them.

Spending money on those things when I didn’t have it to spend but I bought them anyway because it was self-soothing and now that I have no money and now that I have to get rid of them even though buying them made me feel worse it feels like that was the only remedy I have available and now I am disposing of that like it didn’t even matter, like it didn’t even help ever at all.

thoughtless. 1027p 9 march, 2020

how dare you.
how dare you ask me if it was wise, crinkling up your face to say no, I don’t think so
“was it wise? to spend so much money on a good mattress?”

HOW DARE YOU.

it isn’t the most expensive mattress, not by far.
it is a good mattress.
a king-size mattress
for my king-size bed
my king-size sheets
my king-size comforters
my king-size blankets.

how DARE you.

I sold my dead husband’s clothes
so that I might have a comfortable place to sleep.

HOW DARE YOU.

i do not recommend. 909p, 9 march, 2020

i sold the fireplace.

i sold the thing that kept us warm,
kept me warm at the end.

i sold it for three hundred dollars.
it cost us three thousand.

(i do not recommend
when someone you love dies, when someone with whom you have a complicated relationship dies
i do not recommend that you be the one to sell their things.
it is heartbreaking to hear someone argue
that five dollars is too much for the leather belt that held up your husband’s jeans.
that isn’t holding up his jeans anymore because he is dead.
i do not recommend it at all.)

i took the steampunk raygun out of that girl’s hands
being very careful to not snatch it
or be angry
or upset
knowing that my word was law
that i could say anything to anyone
that the regular rules of retail Did Not Apply.
that i could tell her, carefully, breathing very, very carefully,
the sensation of broken glass in my lungs
“no, honey, I’m sorry you can’t have that.”
she looked crestfallen.
i don’t care.
it was mine to keep, mine to give to him.
mine to keep.
still, i felt craven as i clutched it,
remembering his vicious long-ago comment about my “grubby paws”
(meds clouded my memory back then so all that remains is his proclamation that i am, was
craven, grasping, sub-human.)

feeling like setting fire to the place would release me of this finally
every single thing i keep putting aside to take
still, rooms with piled treasure
(is it, though? is it really worth keeping?)

hey, you with the grubby paws?

this is what it comes down to.

i sold the fireplace.

head of my table. 5 february, 2020

Soon enough, “our wonderful table” will be in my new apartment.
The movers are coming Sunday.

I’m trying to remember how we went about getting this table, and it isn’t coming to me.
I do remember discussing the improbability and absurdity of the Amish selling through a website.
I do remember showing you the stain samples they’d sent
(through the mail? pony express? horse and buggy?)
and holding them perpendicularly to each other to mimic how the top would look against the apron
(apron? the lip-thing underneath. you know.)
and not understanding so much how you couldn’t extrapolate those two small samples
into an eight-foot long table
made from 100+ year old reclaimed barn boards.
A dining room table for our stay-put-forever home.
For the dining room with the gracefully curved, bowed wall, mimicked upstairs
in our bedroom.

(something about that curved wall has always captivated me,
looking up at it the other night in bed, after
remarking, small and quiet in the near-dark, “i’m excited to go”
hot tears springing to my wide-open eyes as my unsettled, manic brain
d r a g g e d
my vision across that curve,
trying to slow it,
knowing there would not be too many more nights like this one.
none, perhaps.
A hand in mine, comforting. Lips to my forehead.
Not yours; comforting still.)

Our wonderful table, though.
I’ll sit where you used to sit,
because it is my wonderful table, now.
I plan to fill it with food and drink,
its chairs with friends and family,
the same as we had planned.
The same as we pulled off, albeit with some ugliness.
There isn’t going to be stress at this table anymore.
There isn’t going to be ugliness.
There just isn’t.

The only things I am bringing forward with me are love and light and happiness and joy.
And all of the lessons I am still learning along the way to get here.