This Is Marriage: Day 383

I arrived home last night to find a large black box on our doorstep, a package of Pete's things he no longer needs overseas. I carried it inside and down to the basement. It was heavy. Fitting I suppose. This year is heavy. The box had a lock on it, but Pete had given me the combination. I could have opened it but I didn't. What's inside is just stuff, and I didn't want it to be Pete's stuff, I wanted it to be Pete. The box was not big or heavy enough for that to be true. Also, there were no air holes.

In this house, I'm surrounded by Pete's stuff. Their presence amplifies his absence. So much so that I avoid his closet at all costs. The closet is full of his clothes, it smells like him. If I go near it, I will cry. I want more than this evidence of his having once been here, these faint traces of his molecules. I want all of his atoms to be here, uniquely assembled in the way that makes up his Peteness - those arms, that laugh, those jokes.

I put the black box of Not Pete in the basement. Then I did a HIIT workout video I found on The YouTube. So the sad feels would seep out through sweat and not sobs. And because, even though I fear it is a hopeless cause, I still want to have muscles. Sometimes life is heavy. If you have muscles, you can carry the heavy things.

Over the weekend I Skyped with Pete and it was the first time I'd seen his face in over a month. It was the best. Well, second best. The best will be seeing him in person in about a month and a half. In that moment I realized my definition of home has been forever changed. Home is not this house, this stuff. Home is no longer even a place, it is a face, an embrace.

Marriage is spending your life with the face that you call home.

Lyric of the moment: "Home, let me come home. Home is wherever I'm with you..." ~Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros "Home"