Tag Archives: memories

Archiving a Life

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Deleting photos is the first step.

I don’t know why I waited this long. Perhaps it’s because I thought some small part of a 29-year relationship could be salvaged. But the venomous hatred with which my wasband has attacked me emotionally and legally over the past two plus years has made it pretty obvious that he has no intention of salvaging anything from our lives together.

Not that I’m the least bit interested in that anymore either.

I’ve moved forward to the best of my ability. I’ve built a new life in a new place with new friends and a new home. I have new hobbies and interests and the freedom to explore them as I see fit. It feels good to finally have a positive outlook on my life, one without a risk-adverse “partner” who apparently liked living the same dreary existence every day.

While I brought along many of my possessions from that past life, most of them remain packed (so far) and I’m hoping that time cleanses them of memories associated with the man I often shared them with. I think there’s a pretty good chance of that. After all, my wasband occasionally accompanied me on trips in my helicopter and I know he drove my Honda, even as he searched for my replacement while I was away. (Leaving a dated park receipt in the cup holder was the tipoff there.) Yet those two possessions aren’t tainted by memories of his presence. Maybe it’s because I had so many more good times in these two vehicles without him.

A Lost Man
My wasband and our dog Jack on a Jeep outing in 2010 at Lake Pleasant. Despite the numerous back road trips we made in my Jeep, it (fortunately) triggers no memories of him.

But what will never be cleansed are the photos — hundreds of photos — where he appears. They were taken at various times throughout our lives together. Sometimes he’s smiling at the camera, sometimes he’s making a face. Sometimes he doesn’t even know he’s being photographed — a candid image that reveals some of the deep thoughtfulness of the man he was. It’s those older photos that are the hardest to look at. They remind me of the man he once was, the man I fell in love with, the man who no longer exists.

The photos are in my iPhoto gallery, copied there over the years from digital cameras and cell phones. Some were scanned in from prints when I first returned home from Washington in 2012 to pack up my life. Back then, I wanted to remember him, I wanted something to cling to. But things are different now. Now I just want to forget.

Boating
I snapped this during a weekend trip to Big Bear in 2006. He used this photo on Chemistry.com when he started shopping for my replacement just seven days after I left for my summer work in Washington state. How do I know he used this photo? He showed up as a match for me 6 months later. Ah, the irony.

Opening up iPhoto to track down another image has become a nasty, jarring experience for me. Seeing his face, often in places where we shared good times together, is like a cold slap. Memories are triggered, sadness and feelings of loss and betrayal stab hard. For a long time, I avoided opening iPhoto, much as someone might avoid going into the bedroom of a recently deceased loved one. But that’s not a long-term solution for someone who wants to move on.

So every few days, I dive into my iPhoto gallery. I drag the photos of him from the window into a folder on my computer desktop. And then I delete the photo from iPhoto so I never have to accidentally see it again.

I can’t do them all at once. Sometimes, the task is heart breaking. I don’t want to cry anymore.

My few wedding photos were especially painful to see again, not because of the love I lost but because they represented how the man I loved had conned me into a legal connection that he’d later use to try to steal everything I’d worked so hard to build.

I’m trying to think of it as a clean-up task. As if I’ve dropped a tin full of thumbtacks and they’ve worked their way into the cracks and crevices of my living room furniture. I don’t know how many there are, but I don’t want to be surprised by finding one. So every few days, I go hunting and pull them out and put them in their tin. When I think I’ve got them all, I’ll put the tin away in a safe place where I’m not likely to open it by accident.

But I’m not permanently deleting the photos. I’m archiving them. Once they’re all sorted away into that folder, I’ll copy the folder to a CD or DVD and put that in my Divorce box — the box full of court documents and evidentiary files that I’ll have to keep for who knows how long. That’s also where I’ll put the financial records related to the last home we lived in together. And the few loving cards and notes that he sent me over the years that I kept. Then I’ll delete that folder of photos from my hard disk so I won’t even have to think of it.

I don’t know why I waited this long. I suppose I thought I’d do it when the ordeal of our divorce was over. But after 28 months, it’s still not over. He won’t let go.

How long is a person supposed to wait before cleaning up the detritus of a wrong turn in life? I think this is long enough.

California Strawberries

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Sweet, with bittersweet memories.

StrawberriesThis morning, as I cut up some fresh, ripe California strawberries for breakfast, I found myself thinking back to April days in the late 1980s.

Back then, I worked as an Internal Auditor for ADP. Each spring, in April, they’d send a team of us — usually 3 or 4 auditors — out to their La Palma, CA location. In those days, I lived in New Jersey with the man I’d later marry and a three-week trip to California at the tail end of winter was like a gift from heaven.

They put us up in the Embassy Suites (now a Radisson Suites) up the road from Knotts Berry Farm, each in our own suite. (Back in those days, a “suite” was really two rooms.) Great breakfast every day, happy hour every evening. We really got to know the staff and used to party with them once in a while. There was one rental car for each pair of us, so ground transportation was not a problem. 9 to 5 at the office a few miles away, then on our own with expense accounts for R&R in the evenings.

There was a set of high tension power lines running alongside the hotel’s property. And there, under the power lines, they farmed strawberries.

That’s not the only place, of course, Fresh local strawberries were all over southern California in April. Strawberry shortcake in every restaurant. I especially remember a place near Disneyland in Anaheim. My brain keeps telling me it was called Carroll’s, but I can’t find it in Google. We joked that it was Paul Bunyan‘s restaurant — the portions were enormous. Even the flatware was huge — a soup spoon could not fit in my mouth. The strawberry shortcake there could feed a whole table of people.

On weekends, we had the option of sticking around or using our hotel allowance to pay for lodging elsewhere. One year, I met up with fellow auditors working in the San Francisco area for a trip to Lake Tahoe where they skied and I sipped spiked hot cocoa. Another year, we went to La Jolla and stayed in a hotel on the coast with a trip into Tijuana.

The trips to California were three weeks long and we were given a choice: fly home one of the two weekends or have someone from home fly out to California. Each year, my future wasband would fly out on the second weekend. (That was back in the days when he preferred to spend his vacation time with me rather than with his mother.) We’d do something fun together over the weekend and then he’d spend the week goofing off while we worked, taking the rental car to explore the area. He saw the Spruce Goose and Queen Mary, drove up the coast, and did all kinds of things during his free vacation. At 5 PM, he’d be back in the parking lot with the rental car to pick us up.

When the job was over, I’d take my vacation, tacking a week on to the end of the trip. One year, we drove out to Death Valley and Las Vegas. Another year, we explored Kings Canyon, Sequoia, and Yosemite National Parks. We’d car camp — he’d bring our camping gear with him in a big duffle bag — and explore. They were some of the best vacations I had, visiting beautiful places with the man I loved, back when he seemed more interested in the beauty of the world around us and having fun than buying expensive cars and other assets he didn’t need and couldn’t afford. Best of all, the trips were remarkably affordable with the airfare for both of us covered by my employer.

When I moved out of my Wickenburg home last year, I left behind the photos I took on those trips. They’re in photo albums of prints painstakingly laid out afterwards to share with family and friends. I wanted to forget that part of my life and the man, now dead, who I shared it with. But too many memories survive, even without the photos.

And they can be triggered by something as simple as the look, smell, and taste of fresh, ripe strawberries from California.

On Dreams and Omelets

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An unsettling dream stirs up old feelings.

I dreamed about my husband again last night.

It was the first dream about him in a while. In this dream, he’d managed to get permission to come to the house. I wanted to demand that he leave his girlfriend/mommy behind, but got my request in too late. He pulled up the driveway in his Mercedes with her in the front seat and some guy I didn’t know in the back. When I told him that I would not let him in with her on the property, she tried to argue it but, in the end, drove away with the other man.

In the dream, my husband had his camera with him and immediately began taking photos around the outside of the house. When I reminded him that he was wasting his time and that the pictures could not be used as evidence in court later in the week, he started to talk to me. You know — communicate. The thing we hadn’t been able to do for years. I have no idea what he was saying, but I remember feeling so sad that he was finally talking to me. When it was too late to fix anything. And I felt sorry for him. Again.

And then I woke up, feeling frustrated and sad.

A while later, I was in the kitchen making breakfast. An omelet with bacon and onions.

I remembered all the times either he or I would make omelets for breakfast. We each had our own method and pretty much stuck to them for the 29 years we were together. Both methods made good omelets.

Now I make a smaller omelet, an omelet for one. And oddly, I find myself using his method.

Over the 29 years of our relationship, we spent a lot of time apart. First, it was when I traveled extensively for business, sometimes being away for two or three weeks at a time. Then, it was after we moved to Arizona and he went back to New Jersey, to live in the apartment he kept there for a week at a time every single month. Then it was when I started doing summer work, first at the Grand Canyon and then in Washington State. And then it was when he began living in our Phoenix condo every weekday, week after week.

During all those times apart, there have been other breakfasts made and eaten alone. But for some reason, today’s breakfast was different. Today I really felt the absence of the man I love.

I imagined the conversation we’d be having. Talking about our plans for the day — or lack of plans. One of us making toast. Letting the dog out (or in). Him brewing his Earl Grey tea. Cutting the omelet in half and placing the halves on the two plates he’d warmed in the toaster oven. Using placemats so as not to damage the table with the hot plates. Or maybe, on a nice morning like this, bringing breakfast out to the table on the back patio to enjoy it while the desert comes to life around us.

As I sit here typing this, I wonder whether he’s awake yet. I wonder whether he’ll make an omelet with the woman he’s chosen to replace me. I wonder if she cooks for him or he cooks for her or they share the task, as we always did. I wonder whether they both make omelets the same way. Or maybe she’s some kind of health nut — God knows she left enough vitamins in my house — and only eats egg whites or won’t eat bacon. Maybe they don’t eat omelets together at all.

And I wonder whether he ever thinks of me and the omelets we made together during all those years.