When I remarried, I moved into my husband’s home. My home, on the scruffy side and in need of much repair, sat vacant after our marriage. My husband and I thought it might make a nifty place for visiting friends and relatives to stay but it didn’t work out that way.
A real estate friend finally convinced us the house would be better sold than standing vacant and so it became necessary for me to clean from the house personal items from a past life. I’d been dreading the chore, not so much for the work involved as trying to sort through memories of a life once full of hope and dreams.
I packed away photographs of people I used to call family. We don’t keep in touch anymore. There are no children who need to be reminded of who their grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, nephews, and nieces are. I am a reminder to them of a marriage that failed. There is another wife who takes my place in their family so I am a memory best forgotten.
I sorted the important papers from the insignificant, placing one stack in secured boxes and the other in the trash. Not all of those papers I trashed were “insignificant,” but they have no place in my new life.
I sailed in that past life and photography was a bit more than just a hobby. Thinking about sailing reminds me of the friends I used to have and the good times we shared. Strange how we don’t “fit” anymore. We’ve all changed. Of course, I “lost” most of the friends due to the divorce. That’s to be expected.
I’ve changed, too. I have new friends now, they’ve helped me through a lot of heartache, and I think they may understand me much better sometimes than I understand myself.
I sat on the dock and looked across the water to the neighbor’s dock where they trapped and killed an alligator that became too dangerous. I wondered if any eight-pound bass still swam among the grasses grabbing the newly hatched baby ‘gators. Fishing was a part of that life.
What does one do with old wedding pictures? It wasn’t a fancy wedding but it began a shared life with so many expectations for the both of us.
It was difficult sifting through the memories of a life that no longer exists except for a few things packed in boxes, a moment in time shared with someone who changed my life for the better even if we no longer share a life together. It began and ended as it should.