everything reminds me of him
The story
I ended a long relationship and moved across town into an apartment with pale green cabinets, narrow windows, and an entryway that is too small for my shoes. He has never seen this place, and I chose it partly because there was no shared history attached to the walls. I thought a fresh address would make detaching easier, or at least give my brain fewer places to look for him. Instead, six weeks in, everything reminds me of him, which feels almost insulting because I dont understand how he managed to follow me into rooms he has never entered.
The dish soap is the clearest example. I bought blue Dawn without thinking, set it beside the sink, and immediately heard him saying, "This stuff actually cuts grease," in the serious voice he used for boring household opinions. I considered throwing it out, but wasting a full bottle over a memory seemed ridiculous. There is also a moving box in the closet with his handwriting on the side from our previous apartment. It says "desk junk," which is accurate and mildly annoying. I keep meaning to replace the box, yet every time I open the closet I just stare at those letters for a bit and shut the door.
A neighbor started whistling in the hallway at 7:10 most mornings. The tune happens to be the alarm sound my ex used for years, so now I wake up before my own alarm and wait for the whistling to pass my door. The neighbor is friendly and has no idea. Even my carefully made playlist, which contains no shared songs, recommended a track by his favorite band after I played something vaguely similar. I laughed when it happened because the alternative was getting mad at an app, but seriously, come on. The new playlist was supposed to belong only to me.
Food has been doing it too. I ordered noodles with extra cilantro because he hated cilantro, then spent the whole meal thinking about how pleased he would be to avoid it. I hung a framed print slightly crooked and imagined him standing back with his head tilted, ready to correct it. At a thrift store, I found a brass lamp that fits the living room perfectly, and my immediate thought was that he would call it an old lady lamp. These are brand new choices, including choices he probably would have disliked, but somehow his opinion still shows up before my own. That part frustrates me more than missing him does.
My friend Mara keeps saying, "Give it time," and I know she is probably correct, although hearing it during every phone call is getting old. There are hopeful moments. I drank coffee on the balcony during a warm morning and noticed the quiet before comparing it to the porch at our old place. I bought a bright yellow shower curtain he would have hated, and after hanging it I realized that I actually like it, not just because he would not. Maybe the apartment will slowly collect enough ordinary moments that his imaginary comments stop getting invited into them. Should I keep waiting for that to happen when everything reminds me of him? 🙂
