Dear Internet,
It’s late Saturday evening closing in on early Sunday morning and as of Thursday (the day, not the dog) I’m now 0/2 on the job front. Connecticut let me know this past week they were moving forward with another candidate and surprisingly? I was okay with it. Truly. Disappointed? Absolutely but right now this is turning out to be a good thing™ for a variety of reasons. Honestly.
And for now? On ward and upward. I’ve pulled out all my old job haunt websites, found 10 jobs near immediately to apply for and will work on those applications this week. I’ve got linux server admin to learn, websites to redesign, kickstarting my librarian website, and enough things to do to last someone a life time.
I am the queen of moving forward. I’m also tenacious. I’m very tenacious, sometimes scarily so.
Discovered recently a Kickstarter package was sent to my old address in Connecticut when I swore I had updated everything to the L-Ville address. 95% sure I had updated Kickstarter. 95%.
The 5% was enough to prove me wrong.
I contacted TheBassist about the package that was delivered to him in early December, not expecting much of a response as I have not heard a peep from him in three months. I don’t stalk him on the facebooks, the mutual friends and I are on collegial terms. It’s life. You break up, you mourn, and you move on.
As the days blended into another, I resolved to accept the package was a lost cause. I wasn’t terribly worried, really, as I have a digital copy of the book. It would have been nice to have the physical media but if not? It’s okay.
A week later he got in touch to let me know the package had been shipped and here was the cost (I offered to pay for postage). I was a bit apprehensive in regards to the thank you card I sent his family was in the package — and I asked. He responded absolutely not. I was thrilled to hear it had been opened, they knew of my gratitude, and it laid with the rest of the holiday cards in their kitchen.
This was a relief. His family are great people, how the last year went down was of no fault of their own, and I wanted to make sure they knew my gratitude and thankfulness for their kindness, hospitality, and generosity.
Truth be told, I’m aghast at my behaviour in the last year — especially in accordance with his family. If I were me now meeting me of the then, I would be appalled that someone was so — foolish? Careless? Something. I’m being too hard on myself, and as I well know, but as someone whose so fucking self-aware (as told to me by my current (and past) shrinks, TheExHusband, and close friends), it bears thinking about. If I were in that same situation now as I was then, I would be too proud to accept their kindness.
(Pride? Not sure how I would describe the feeling other than that’s the closest approximation I can give. I can’t help but think if the domino effect had not happened, I’d be in a wholly different frame and mired life of mine. As I mentioned to someone recently, it was around late 2013 when I lamented how stale my life had become and I only needed some kind of excitement to get it remotely interesting. Last time I ever say that again, I must point out.)
I waited for the box with much trepidation. I had zero idea what he would put in it. I admit I worked myself up in a near froth about the whole thing but by mid-week I was back in control of my emotions. I have a TheBassist box started (things that are of/remind of him) and agreed with myself whatever was in the box winging its way to me was to painful to view/use would go immediately into TheBassist box to be stored indefinitely.
He said the box was arriving on Saturday and I waited as the morning slowly made its way towards the afternoon. (Rip the bandaid off and all that rot.) I checked the mail around noon and nothing had arrived but 15-30 minutes later, I was awash of impending dread. I knew the box had arrived and sure enough, there it was. Almost taunting me.
(Yes, I am being overly dramatic.)
I slit the butcher paper and tape, slit the tape securing the box, pull out the plastic air bags, and there was my stuff. Not all of it, some of it. My favorite JoyDiv shirt I left for him, the last love letter I gave him, a copy of THE PLAN I had sketched out in December 2014 and was pinned to the bulletin board in his room. My personal coffee cup (that looked used?). Some random knick knacks I used to give my personality in his bedroom. The package and mail that had not been passed on to me.
(I can still recall the location of the shirt and the letter I left on his pillow before I left that early September morning. Time moved so quickly, I realized the last time I was intimate with anyone was with him and I have no plans to be intimate with anyone else for a very long time. (See: hot mess. See: swearing off relationships for at least a year.))
It was a strange, sad, and depressing affair, those items.
I refused to let myself read too much into the box — it’s just stuff after all. In my paper journal I wrote I would be terribly upset if he sent back the JoyDiv shirt, and here was the shirt, rolled up neatly, snuggling against the cardboard side. Here I am, heart broken, but not terribly surprised, not in hysterics, not really anything.
(I’ve prepared myself to accept he may send further boxes along with other things and into TheBassist box they will go.)
I’ve been ruminating on the choice of things he sent. I would have been gobsmacked if he sent along the Grand Rapids shirt I gave him all that time ago. The other love letters. The silly signs. The random gifts (Pops! Toys and other things).
I put the things he sent into my TheBassist box. The coffee cup is getting washed and it too will find its new home. The mail was sorted and the junk mail (most of the mail packed) was recycled. The unpacking, the sorting, and the questioning was over in less than five minutes.
Lunch was beckoning. I closed the front door, turned the lock, and that, as they say, was that.
You may have heard, Alan Rickman died this week, and like his cancer predecessors (Lemmy from Motorhead, David Bowie), the world has been mourning. It’s been a very good week for DEATH on all accounts and for various reasons.
I’ve been thinking about what tattoo #18 will be when I get some cash to get fresh ink. I knew I wanted it to be text of some kind, picking a phrase you absolutely love to carry on with you always is hard work.
I think I have found the answer.
Those of us who are Harry Potter fans remember all too well (and cried) when Dumbledore is gently surprised of Snape’s still in love with Lily Potter after all those years:
And this will be tattoo #18, more than likely around my right wrist / forearm.
“After all this time?”
“Always,” said Snape.
xoxo,
Lisa
P.S. Krazy Kate tisked me into agreeing when the box arrived to not contact TheBassist to let him know the eagle had landed. Don’t hand over power, etc. I coughed up the excuse I needed to contact him: Mail from the Connecticut institution had not made its way to me yet even though they had my updated address. Could you please forward the mail on? Thank you. I also thanked him for the box, but I had to make a correction. Several of his friends informed me when TheBassist made his year end review on the facebooks, he had a line that went along the lines of, “And I broke up with the girl who loved me.” That wording has been plaguing me for months — it’s not past tense, it’s present. So the last line I wrote was, “Correction: It is not ‘a girl who loved me,’ rather it’s, ‘a girl who loves me.’ Always has been and so it should always be.”