Once upon a time…on days dark, stormy, and sunny alike, trash bins were rolled to the ends of driveways and men on metal steads came and took away all our shit. I mean, rubbish. Or like, excrement. Just read the sentence again and then replace *shit* with any medieval equivalent you fancy. Dealer’s choice.
As the festive season came to a close, a young woman (arguably the most beautiful, funny, clever woman on the face of the earth) found herself swept away into the busy agenda of a new year and her brain would not lend itself to silly observations. She tried and tried to think of some existential metaphor rooted in garbage but was left with nothing more than an absent mind (although her mind may have been empty, thoughts of Twilight were never far from her grasp). Things change, as life always seems too, and after weeks of wondering, a spark was ignited once more.
So after a six week hiatus, please welcome back–trash day.
Stand up and do a *mandatory* celebratory interpretive dance (if you are able).
On the first day of college orientation, my OL (shoutout to OL Alex, who will never read this) asked the question, “What are you most proud of?” At that time, I hadn’t done a lot to be proud of. I guess the downside of having avoided taking risks and making mistakes, is there’s nothing worthwhile to reminisce about (yet). Upon further reflection, I realized there was one thing that I took healthy pride in. My car.
In highschool, I spent a good portion of my time working at J. Alexanders, restaurant for the stars and Wesleyan moms. Picture 16 year old Bridget–black dress, black tights, ballet flats soaked in kitchen juice, and a slicked back bun that “euthanized me” (an actual quote from my manager…and an incorrect use of the word). I could say a lot about the things I learned while working at J’s–and my most embarrassing moment, which took place within its walls. The job may not have taken a significant amount of brain power, but it was work and because of it I was able to buy a car (full transparency: Dad/Pops/Randalf paid for about 20% but 80% is the majority so I am taking the credit).
I loved this car. It was one of the first times I saw a tangible mark of my own dedication and responsibility. I felt proud of myself. I also felt carsick, or I guess I should say I feel carsick. And I do, quite literally every time I’m in a car and am not in the driver’s seat. Because of my tendency to get queasy, my hand is the first to reach the air when someone needs to volunteer to drive. My car has been the one taken on every road trip or late night ice cream run, and two weeks ago it made its last journey (at least with me behind the wheel).
I thought the car was in good shape. A 2009 Subaru with less than 100k miles that I was planning on driving until its ultimate demise in an epic car chase explosion situation (I would be safely watching from behind the camera of the action movie I wrote). Alas, my little car now belongs to carmax and I am driving my grandpa’s old ford edge. Sexy, right? Saying goodbye to objects that we prize always seems harder when it is unexpected. I could tell you all the reasoning that led to a quick, few day turnaround to selling the car, but it really doesn’t matter. The point is that it’s hard to let go of things you weren’t prepared to live without.
My car is obviously just a metaphor for the real things in life that end unexpectedly. Those goodbyes I think are beyond the levity I strive for in this blog, so while I may not address them directly, I recognize that the ultimate unexpected goodbye leaves a bigger wound and moving on leads to remembering instead of something “better.”
When relationships end–friendships, romances, or otherwise–we often use the logic of “better” to cope with the hurt and pain that comes with those endings. Frequently, those relationships end because of growth. From the abundance, lack of, or direction of growth that can take things once good and leave us wanting.
Better becomes a coping mechanism to keep us from grieving the ends of relationships or maybe even just the transformation of a relationship into something different. My counselor once told me I have to grieve the person I thought I knew in order to embrace the person they are. If we skip straight to better without mourning the emotional death we have experienced, I wonder if we doom ourselves to never be someone else’s “better.”
The world loves to romanticize heartbreak. We turn the end of friendships into the villainizing our ex-bff or we rationalize why we grow apart to make ourselves feel wise and mature. We turn ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends into a sum of all their worst qualities. But things end unexpectedly all the time and very rarely do I genuinely want to romanticize those goodbyes. I just want to let myself feel shitty *see above to replace word* because the sooner I feel all the bad stuff, the sooner I get to grieve and move on. And to be honest, that is not natural to me. I have to deliberately make myself unearth those negative feelings because I know it will serve me the best in the long run.
Recently I read this poem:
Nothing ever ends poetically.
It ends and we turn it into poetry
All that blood was never once beautiful.
It was just red.
– Kait Rokowski
Rokowski touches on the idea that the ending of things isn’t poetic. Endings don’t get to be romanticized in the process of grieving. It comes later. To get to the beauty, we have to fight through the pain. There are no shortcuts.
Do things have to become poetic after the fact? I guess that’s up to you. If you’re reading this you probably know me well enough to know that writing about my life and my experiences is like the final bow on the stage of that point in time. It’s vital to me. It is my gift to myself. If I write a song during my pain, it’s the emotional equivalent to pressing down on a fresh bruise. But the things I write after the pain has passed gives the pain a purpose.
When the unexpected happens and we have to throw away things, people, places, relationships that we aren’t ready to lose, memorialize it. Let the blood be red and then let it mean something.
Your Trashiest Friend,
B
