After the marriage, a move happened. I used to think I lived simply, had very few belongings and could leave everything behind when it was time to move. In reality that is not quite how it worked out. The detritus of a decade clung to me a gooey mass of memories. The pack and move was the easier part - a couple of meltdowns notwithstanding.
It is only when I started to unpack my belongings in the new closet that I was hit by the dead-weight of the old. In an ideal world, I would throw away everything from the past in lieu of being able to undo the past itself. But doing that is like peeling an onion - the past is laid layer upon layer and if I discarded enough of it, there would be nothing left of me or my life. I experienced an enormous sense of emptiness. Shorn of the baggage, memories and experiences there was no substance to me. I would float away like an soap bubble and the dissolve into nothingness.
DB has yet to unpack his belongings but I doubt he will experience anything like what I did. He is simply cut of a different cloth. Unlike me, he lives in the moment and looks ahead. No matter what happened in his past, he never allows it to drag him down. On a bad day, DB will be down for a few hours and bounce right back. He is not the kind of person who will remember in painful detail when he last wore a particular article of clothing, the events of that day and allow those memories to intrude into the here and now. That is one of the things I love about him.
He would be able to relate a lot better to the feeling of oneness that I experienced with him when I blended the spices from our kitchens together. As I did that , there was a sense of things of disparate provenance coming together very harmoniously. Unlike the closet, where the past engulfs and envelopes me, the kitchen is where it blends effortlessly into the present. I wonder why that is.
