Just a Few Holes

When my boyfriend and I decided to move in together, I was so excited to make room for him in my home. I would stand in the living room of my one-bedroom apartment, plotting the changes: the blank patch of wall that would soon be adorned with black Ikea ledge shelves for his fossil collection; the ugly 90’s-style hand-me-down couch that would go to make way for his funky crushed velvet 70’s-style hand-me-down couch; the old sewing desk that would move into the bedroom to make room for his large dining table.

Shifting things around, reorganizing, getting rid of my things to make way for his. It was exciting. We were combining our lives.

Then, two and a half years later, I prepared myself to undo it all.

(His choice, not mine.)

I didn’t do any plotting this time. I went through shelves, drawers, and the backs of closets, fishing out the things I knew he would forget. He hadn’t asked me to do it, but he was planning to pack up all his stuff in one day, and I had always been the one who remembered where things were and who they belonged to.

Besides, I needed an activity.

I stacked his things around the piano (mine) as neatly as possible, leaving the couch (his) empty so I would have somewhere to sit and cry when reality became too much. (During this time, my tears would hit deep and hard and then pass, like a flash flood. My body collected the sadness, heaving it all out in a few overwhelming sobs and then letting it trickle back in while I thought I was doing other things.)

Another pile formed: the stuff that was not just his and not just mine. It was ours — things we had purchased together since he moved in. We would have to sort through it.

In the end, it all went smoothly. In a sad attempt to show caring for one another, we both kept trying to make sure the other person was getting more stuff. (It would have been incredibly annoying to watch.)

It went so smoothly, in fact, that I didn’t really realize it was done until I came home from work one day to find his keys on the floor in the entryway. He had slipped them under the door after coming to pick up one last thing.

I stood once again in the middle of the living room and looked around at my apartment, now full of holes: the bookshelf that had gaps in it; the games collection that no longer required two shelves to be accommodated; the couch and kitchen table-sized voids; the actual holes in the wall, from those shelves we had put up for his fossils.

I don’t remember exactly what I did that night. Probably crowded out my thoughts with as many episodes of Friends as possible before dragging myself to bed.

In the days that followed, however, I did what I could to fill the empty space. I pulled my old desk back out of the bedroom and into the spot where the table had been and re-arranged my books so they all stood up straight. I spent too much money on a new couch. I trolled thrift stores and Facebook marketplace for the little extra things I needed to make my home (and maybe my life?) whole again.

Except for the actual holes — the ones left in the wall from the shelves. All they needed was a little putty, but I didn’t fill them for almost a year. Not until I was finally inviting another man over and suddenly, the holes became a beacon of sadness that needed to be filled in, lest they somehow make me appear to be hung up on my ex and his fossils.

(I guess I wasn’t ready to fill those last few holes until I thought someone else might fill mine, which is far more on the nose than anything I would normally write, but heck, isn’t that life?)