the box.

The last I heard from him, he was getting ready to move.  I had some, a lot, of his things at my place still and realized that I needed to send it all to him.  He didn't want anything, he said, but neither did I and in that situation - it was only decent to send it all back.  He could figure out what to do with his own possessions; they never were mine to disregard.

Truth is - I wasn't quite ready to send it all back.  It's one of those things that I always thought I would have more time to wrap my head around.  I still missed him, or the idea of him, I can't be sure, but I missed something.  There was too much bad and ugly towards the end, so much so that I forgot about the long period of time that was filled with so much good.  I wanted to use his belongings to remind me of all the wonderful things about him.  But I didn't think he wanted to give me his new address, which is what I would've needed to buy myself a little more time.  So on the last possible Saturday morning, I went around my apartment grabbing what I knew to be his and packed it all into an old generic cardboard box.

It's not like I intentionally packed with haste or without care - I just packed without emotion.  I was on a deadline.  It was the only way to do it.  No time to tissue wrap and polish things off with pretty little ribbons and bows.  I tried to be as thorough as those few minutes allowed me to be.  I remember pausing when it came to including a note, some kind of cover letter to explain.  Should I, should I not, and if I did, what should it say?  He deserved a lot of words, I felt, but I didn't want to give him any more words, I felt.  In the end I scribbled something nondescript.  I can't remember what it said.  Maybe it was a sentence, maybe it was two, but I know it was objective, purposeful. 

Of course I forgot a few items.  Things that were placed in locations I didn't think to look; things buried under other items of mine; things that were accidentally hidden.  I wish I would've done a better scrub, but alas, hindsight.  I can't remember the trigger, but at some later point in time he highlighted for me the irony of it all: the few items he actually wanted back were the exact ones I forgot to send.  Figure that.

It is sad, really.  In that moment I fully realized that it had been quite some time since I had been happy.  More poignantly, in that moment I fully realized that it had been quite some time since I made him happy.  For even when I tried, I could never seem to do right by him.  Maybe I just didn't try hard enough, I don't really know.  I suppose in the end it was fortuitous that I did not invest that much time into packing his belongings.  Because, frankly, there really is no benefit in spending a second longer thinking about a man who always reminded me of my failures.  And, I'm glad I didn't.