I drove past the house on Tuesday.
I’d been in Worcester to buy ballet shoes for an eleven-year-old who needed them. Then I was meeting someone in a town next to the town where I used to live.
First I stopped in a different town on the way to the other town from Worcester. I was going to go to a café I love, but they were closed. Next door was a restaurant I went to with my ex a lot. I didn’t want to go in because of the association, but then I thought, no, I need to face this head on, and I went in.
I don’t know why I feel like I need to face things head on all the time.
I spent too much on flatbread pizza that was not exceptional. I sat and tried to not think about sitting in there with my ex. I was trying to be tough.
To get to the town that I was due in, I had to take a road that goes past my old house. Kind of. I could have stayed on the main road and been on the other side of a bunch of trees from my old house. But that was the longer way. The shorter way was to drive right past the house. So I did, being tough again.
I’ve realized over the years that my need to prove that I can handle stuff is deeply related to my years of having to act like a grownup when I wasn’t one. Putting my feelings aside in deference to the feelings of others. See my previous post.
So I drove past the house. I wasn't going to let discomfort make me take the slightly longer route. I’m tough I can take it.
It was fine until I got just past it, then I was crying. He had two saw horses set up in the driveway. He was working on some project. I loved that he worked on projects and fixed things. I started remembering other things I loved about him, something I try to never do. That’s when it really hurts to have lost that life.
I got to the other town where I was meeting the person. I’m fine. This is fine. I can handle this. Sure there were a lot of associations with my ex in this town, too. But I was fine. Totally fine.
I was not fine.
I hung out with the other person, who was open to listening to me talk about how not fine I was. Then I drove back to Mitra’s and typed out my rant about wanting to run away from all my obligations.
I don’t know what to do with all this. I let myself get so enmeshed in my life out there. Nothing in the area has separate memories for me. I can’t even visit my Mom now without the associations.
Yes, these things fade with time. To an extent. It’s not really that the association goes away, it just gets less jarring to experience the association. Sometimes.
After my divorce, it was incredibly painful to see my ex-husband, but I had to do it all the time because we had a kid together. I had to put on a brave face so often while my insides twisted up.
I avoided dating anyone I could really be serious about because I never wanted to go through that sort of loss again. The breakups were painful, but they didn’t blow up my whole life. There were streets in Somerville and Brookline that were hard to drive down for a while, but then it was okay.
This is so different. I have to be gentler with myself. I have to respect how painful and disorienting it is to be going through this.
I am not fine.