On Saturday, A came and got the rest of her stuff from the house with her mom’s help. I had asked my parents to come up to support me (and serve as witnesses if she tried to claim something happened later). When she walked in the door and immediately threw a little fit, it was exactly the piece of closure I needed. I didn’t need any further explanation or conversations about what could have been different. It was done. It had been done for a long time, she had just been too afraid to say anything about it.
That was the thing in the end. She was too afraid to talk about her feelings. In our conversations (and fights) over the last two months she talked a lot about finding her voice as she’d been working with her therapist. It was great that she was finding herself and learning about her voice. I asked her about it, I practically begged her to tell me about it. But those conversations were still too hard for her. It was much easier to have those kind of conversations online, one step removed from reality. That was the reality she wanted now. Something that could be both real and not real at the same time.
Eventually she begrudgingly participated enough so that we were able to divide the majority of the household property. I created an inventory and had both of us sign it (along with a parent as a witness). Only one item remains in dispute to be determined. When she drove away with the last of her stuff to take to her new apartment it was like a giant weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I could at least glimpse the other side of this mountain.
I’m going to be ok. Its going to be ok. I still fully expect to have moments of sadness, loss, and grief. Those moments are not for her though. They are for the hopes and dreams that we had shared. There has been a death for those things and I am still most definitely grieving them. But the beauty of dreams is you can have new ones. Hope will return alongside those dreams. Someone will be there to share in them. Openly and honestly.
Her things are out of my house. Her presence will linger a little less each day. Soon paperwork will be completed and the last things that bind us together in the physical world will be done. That small piece that will always remain will be all that is left.
