Experiencing the House Tomb and Planning My Escape
The house is like a tomb. I can lie on the floor and relax and feel that same feeling I feel when I visit the grave of Melody, the girlfriend and friend murdered in her youth.
Nearly every single thing in this house was bought by my ex-wife and I together, or a gift to us, or a gift from one to the other, or something she brought into the house: Vergil, the tabby cat, Ziggy the cat we adopted the year we were married by a Justice of the Peace in our apartment, the maple dining room table, the paint on the walls, the TV we bought when I cashed in my Macromedia stock options, the refrigerator magnets we picked up at a rest area on the highway, the rocking chair my parents bought for us that has our college emblem etched into the back.
This place is a tomb to my marriage. And I live in it. I have begun to plan my escape. Meanwhile, I pay my respects to another dead marriage, dead hopes, dead past, dead love. It's melancholy and cathartic.
I put an offer on a townhouse yesterday. It's bigger, square footage wise, than my house. It's across from the Sudbury River and there's a sign for a nature trail right there. It's on a quiet, one way back street. It has three floors and basement with a high ceiling. Two full baths. And it's currently owned by a Muslim family who, judging from the pictures and smells when I entered the place, cook a lot of Indian food. It felt right, this place. They ask that you take your shoes off when you enter. I think I'll keep that practice. Respect for the living, the home.
A friend said yesterday to another woman going through a divorce (one involving children), "Get your own keys," meaning she should get free from her dependency on a man and get her own life, wealth, real estate, vehicle established. Get your own keys. I paid/owned 99% of the bills here for several years but everything was in both our names. Now I will be getting my own keys. It's a good feeling.
Nearly every single thing in this house was bought by my ex-wife and I together, or a gift to us, or a gift from one to the other, or something she brought into the house: Vergil, the tabby cat, Ziggy the cat we adopted the year we were married by a Justice of the Peace in our apartment, the maple dining room table, the paint on the walls, the TV we bought when I cashed in my Macromedia stock options, the refrigerator magnets we picked up at a rest area on the highway, the rocking chair my parents bought for us that has our college emblem etched into the back.
This place is a tomb to my marriage. And I live in it. I have begun to plan my escape. Meanwhile, I pay my respects to another dead marriage, dead hopes, dead past, dead love. It's melancholy and cathartic.
I put an offer on a townhouse yesterday. It's bigger, square footage wise, than my house. It's across from the Sudbury River and there's a sign for a nature trail right there. It's on a quiet, one way back street. It has three floors and basement with a high ceiling. Two full baths. And it's currently owned by a Muslim family who, judging from the pictures and smells when I entered the place, cook a lot of Indian food. It felt right, this place. They ask that you take your shoes off when you enter. I think I'll keep that practice. Respect for the living, the home.
A friend said yesterday to another woman going through a divorce (one involving children), "Get your own keys," meaning she should get free from her dependency on a man and get her own life, wealth, real estate, vehicle established. Get your own keys. I paid/owned 99% of the bills here for several years but everything was in both our names. Now I will be getting my own keys. It's a good feeling.
posted by Scott M. Stirling | 4:33 AM
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