Monday, February 16, 2009

In case of OLD TRUNKS

When Bobby and I broke up, I took back Disneyland.

Disneyland was our thing – one of our many things.  And, of course, you know what I mean.  Couples (relationships of all types, really) collect distinguishing marks and memories.  A date here, a movie there, a song.  You keep and horde these things, set them on the shelves of your heart, and revisit them with sacred awe.  You polish them.  You listen to them.  You pull them out and drink of them together.  You keep them, like trophies, on the mantle. 

But when relationships go wrong, you trash them.

These things – restaurants you ate in, music you love, quirks and passions held dear – they’re suddenly ugly.  And those things not made ugly are, at the very least, painful.  And so you kill them, smash them up.  At the very least…you put them away.

But when Bobby and I broke up, I took back Disneyland.

He couldn’t have it.  It was too much fun!  It was too precious.  No!

So I embarked on a wild fling and took the New Boy there with me.  We stood in lines with our arms around each other and had our photo taken on the Mark Twain.  We kissed on rides.  I wrenched Disneyland, which was fast sinking into the quicksand of my breakup, back up into a safe place in my heart. 

But there are things in this world that are lost and gone.  Probably forever.  I couldn’t save them.  Or I didn’t want to save them.  Natalie Cole.  The Nightmare Before Christmas.  That little Italian restaurant in Pasadena.  The rock of Gibralter.  Glass.  Red tide.  (These are my memorials.)

And last night, I went back and listened to Michael Buble.  And I realized that his music, too, is gone from me.  I love Michael Buble!  But I don’t have anything else to tie that music to.  So it’s gone.

But.  Okay.   

Here’s the good part.

There are infinite number of things in the world.

There are always more songs, more places to go, more discoveries to make.  There are new memories in store.  There are new things that we can call ours.  Ours! 

And I don’t forget the old things…I just put them away.  It’s like cleaning out the trunks of your childhood.  You have to move all your old toys and books to make way for your new clothes.  Your new books.  All the NEWNESS that life wants to hand you.  Fill up the shelves of your heart again!  Put new golden memories upon your mantle!

And even if you have to, at some point, again throw the new things out and again put the new things away…there will be newness.  NEW newness! There will be new things even then.

As Oggy always says,  “This is how it goes.  We are human.  If we were robots it would be different, but not as nice.”

Life.  Newness.  This is how it goes.

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