My ex-boyfriend and I broke up on December 11th, and today is March or April or May somethingth. Not that I’m counting or anything, but it is over the pivotal three month mark and only today I decided it was time to let go of his black Hanes sock that has resided on my bureau since he left. I admit that it was there because I had some fantasies attached to it. And I don’t mean that I was putting it on my body parts or softly kissing it, but to be honest, I did sometimes hold it in my hand and feel its slight heft.
I guess what I strangely wished was that our lives had been more tangled up in each other’s. It didn’t feel right that after over a year of dating this was all I had left of him: a black sock. Shouldn’t I have found his laundry in my laundry and his food in my fridge and his tools in my toolbox? And what did it mean that I didn’t? That he was tidy and didn’t forget his stuff? Or that our lives weren’t as intertwined as I had let myself believe they were?
I kept the black sock because sometimes, right before I fell asleep at night, I would imagine the sock was a beacon of sorts, and that together, the sock and I had telepathic powers. (Is it telepathy when it’s an inanimate object?) And that my ex must know that I have his black sock and he must think of it too, and think of me with it, and that maybe, sooner rather than later, he would show up at my door and ask for it back. But when he laid eyes on me, standing at my door with my mussed hair in my oversized tee shirt gingerly holding his sock, he would realize that he just. couldn’t. live. without. me.
Somehow, the sock channeling thing wasn’t working. I just now put it in my bathroom waste basket.
It’s not just about the amount of time invested in a relationship, though. Shouldn’t a great love have something to show for it? Some evidence. I should have his name branded over my heart. I should have an imprint of him on my skin. My house should look different from all of the time he spent in it. His footprints should criss cross my concrete floors. It doesn’t seem right for life to easily settle back into the way it was before he came.
Tonight I saw him online, on a dating website. Ugh. In his photo he had shaved his beard and somehow that helped. Because I loved his beard, and no one else was going to get his bearded self. At least not this week, until it grew out again. God damn this brave new world in which the only way to ever truly get away from an ex is to go completely off the grid. In my profile, I wrote, I am looking for the guy who has the other one of these… and posted a picture of the black sock.
No I didn’t but I wanted to.
I also have his water bottle. And it’s sort of distinct— he’s the only person I’ve ever seen with one of these water bottles. When we broke up, over the telephone, he said, “Promise me, Molly, don’t ever contact me again. Don’t email, don’t text, don’t call, don’t post a picture of my black sock on OK Cupid.” (Ok minus the last part.) And I said, “But I have your water bottle.” This is a true story. And he said, “This is not about the water bottle, Molly.”
But it was about the water bottle! Because I think my cryptic delivery was code for: “ALL I HAVE OF YOU IS YOUR WATER BOTTLE. And your black sock. And you have my god damned heart.” I’m not sure what that looks like for him to have my heart but I don’t think I left stuff at his house either. And as far as I know, he has not gotten my name tattooed encircling his belly button. But, for the record, I think he should. Not because we are getting back together. We aren’t. But because I want to stamp him. Because love it confusing like that.
He refused to talk about the water bottle. So the other day my daughter took it to the kids’ gym she goes to and when I picked her up she said, “Mom, a kid said he knows who this water bottle belongs to and it’s not mine.” And I said, “Well you tell that kid your mother suffered for that water bottle!”
No I didn’t, but I wanted to.
It’s not really about the water bottle. But earlier tonight I realized as I drank from his water bottle and wore his black sock as a mitten, that I really should have more of his stuff, not less. It’s just that I have the wrong stuff, and that’s why I’m ridiculously clinging to it (that and the fact that I can’t let go). I should have some of his tee shirts at least, to sleep in. I should have a stack of cards he had written me (couldn’t you write a stack of cards in a year?) I should have some dried flowers turning to dust.
If this was 1992, and I was a teenaged girl, I would have those things. Along with a mix tape.
But what I had was a lot of text messages. Some of them made me laugh. Hundreds of them let me know I wasn’t alone as I fell asleep at night— when my kids were being tiny punk-jerks or my job was sucky for the day or I had a stomach bug or I thought of the best idea for a book and had to tell him at once. Some of his texts were silly, racy, loving, longing, flattering, winning. But now, all of them are gone. I don’t have those text messages. They are all in my head like alphabet soup, and someday, sooner rather than later, they will be nowhere at all.
I used to see his car around town. Now I never do. What is this closure nonsense I hear of? Every person who has loved and lost knows what it’s like to shuffle through an empty house at night wearing the one black sock of their beloved. Ok, maybe not. I gave his water bottle to Goodwill. Every time I saw it I had a reaction, like a Pavlov dog, and thought he was sitting on my couch or sleeping in my bed.
I have a pretty amazing tiny gift he gave me (no, it’s not a baby, this isn’t that kind of story!) I’m not going to say what it is. It will stay between me and him. The rest will go. The text record of our romance, the water bottle, the black sock—ultimately, these are ideas and things and they are transitory. It is the story of my life that he has left a mark on. It is me that he has forever changed. I myself am what I was looking for when I was hoping he would leave more behind.
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