I decided to take the rest of the week off and come home (mostly because I'm tired of eating campus food and I have like two or three loads of dirty clothes, sheets and towels to wash - but also just because), and tonight, in an attempt to be productive without actually touching the pile of work I brought home, I decided to clean out my closet.
In doing so, I found a purple and grey school uniform tie knotted around a hanger in the back of my closet. Now, the thing about this tie is that it has been in the back of my closet since 2011, which really doesn't seem like that long for something to be hiding in the back of one's closet. Except 2011 was a whole dozen and a half lifetimes ago. In the time between then and now, we have become different people dozens and dozens of times. That tie hung there, knotted around that hanger, through our sixteen month relationship. Through the months short of a year that we didn't speak. While we were awkwardly making small talk at the orthodontist. While we slowly relearnt our ropes in 2014 and pushed all the boundaries. While we had shared anxiety about moving to university. It stayed here, miles from us there, while I made you my second first and so on. It stayed here while we made something ugly out of our relationship. Stayed here while I packed your things into a box, even that necklace I kept for four years because I loved you that whole time (the point being that this tie should have been in the box of things I didn't need to cherish anymore because I was letting it all go, even this stupid tie had I remembered its existence). It stayed here while we stopped speaking and I deleted your number and unfriended you on Facebook.
And... It's still here.
*glares at the offending tie*
I don't want your tie. I don't want it in my room. I don't want any more reminders that once upon a time (once upon a tie hehe) this wasn't what we were. I don't yearn for you anymore, but I also don't want the softness of nostalgia crawling into my bedroom because nostalgia is my real enemy - it keeps reminding me of the person you were, the person I actually yearn for, the person that doesn't exist. (And as I think of the offensive tie, I remember that once you and I sat in this bedroom together - that tie hanging in the back of the closet, silently waiting for this day - and I want to set this room on fire and burn this house down. You see how this stupid tie came to ruin my night?)
Now I can't just dump the tie, because though I'm sure I've dumped material objects of more significant real value before, I don't believe in dumping material objects of actual value (you know, sentimental value and whatnot) and this tie has sentimental value to me as my exboyfriend's tie, but I'm sure it must have some sentimental value to you as your high school tie... (Which lends the question of Why did you even give this to me in the first place?) I mean, I'd like to politely offer it back to you... but I will most certainly not to be digging up your number to message you again, and certainly not over a fucking bumbo pussy raas claat tie because yuh nah make me feel like shit and blue tick me and that foolishness over a damn tie. My pride is still recovering. ...I could just, like, thumbtack it to your door? But then I'd have to go out of my damn raas way to walk to your block to return this stupid tie, and I swore to myself I was never going out of my way to you or your hall again. ...Another option is that I could just give your neighbour to give it to you, but I'm currently not really maintaining much of a friendship with him either, and I refuse to stir him into this pot of petty porridge we've cooked up like two asses. Plus, how would I explain this? "Oh, I'm returning a tie he doesn't need and won't wear and probably doesn't even remember because I'm very serious about keeping all the sentiment out of my life because sentiment invites nostalgia and I need no nostalgia because I don't want to miss a person who doesn't exist anymore and ugh, I just don't want to remember how happy I felt four years ago when he insisted I take the stupid tie because he doesn't make me happy anymore. Just, like, give it to him and stop looking at me like that."
So I guess I'll just.... leave it here?
Or I could stuff it into the bottom of my bag when I'm packing to go back to school and then wait until I get drunk, like properly drunk... like, fucking wasted, and then do some stupid shit like let the chips land where they may and show up at your door with a stupid tie, drunk off my ass. (This is a joke. A really dry, sardonic joke... but a joke nonetheless. A joke only I will get. And maybe you would have, if... you know... I dunno. But yeah. This is a nod at that one time I really missed you, and my friends made me drink lots of liquor to make me forget I missed you, and then I showed up drunk at your door and that was probably up there with the stupidest things I've ever done to wound my pride... but is now just a joke that I laugh about all the time, by myself.)
Anyways. It's a tie. Belonging to the old you. The you I miss fondly. The you before you rolled in glitter and forgot you were gold and turned into some glittery, less lovely version of the niceness you were. And I'm going to roll it into a ball and throw it back into my closet and stop pretending to be productive and just give in and watch Bob's Burgers for like four hours, without shame.
I'm actually way too happy this month, and lately, to be obsessing over a tie... and on a related note, I've been writing the last post in this series for a few days now. It's sort of an 'I miss you, but not really and not in the ways I used to' post, and is supposed to be the "last" (maybe) post I write about you, and without bias or objection. I may turn it into two posts, or three depending. But the point is that the end is near, and the feeling is almost all gone and I'm trying to make the most of this new objective perspective it's given me to write the end. I'm so excited it is almost palpable.
(lol i write like i have readers, but i do... these posts will be read by lots of different people. lots of different versions of me. mes from the future who will look back at these posts and remember these feelings, and that's why i write. it matters to me that i can reflect, look back, remember. it matters that i documented these feelings because they mattered, then - now? - and i will want to know what mattered even when it no longer matters)
