Nostalgia is a cruel, heartless mistress.
She lets me remember the seldom, few and far between times where we shared smiles and laughter and in-jokes that made us giggle so hard that we hurt.
She omits the shining truth, the beacon I need.
---
Last night I found myself compelled by the blush of Spring and the warm August sun to drive home That Way. That familiar way. Up the hill, past the horses, up and down.
Past the house.
The Autumn that we met, we promised that our first summer together would be extraordinary. That we would laugh with our faces to the sky and our hearts in each other's hands - and that it would always be that way. We vowed. We swore. We promised.
It's seven years since we moved there. Against all odds - an ambitious premise and promise. I was not looking forward to the reminders of what it - and we - descended into.
As I explain to my students that a setting is as much a character as the protagonist in a cliche of thunderstorms and sweat and rubble, it strikes me that our situation was imbued by spirit. From that very first day when you didn't wait for me to get home to show people around, to that first night - as I tried to sleep on a tear-drenched pillow, alone, on a mattress on the floor - whilst you wasted time with your friends. I was alone. I found sleep alone in an unfamiliar house and alone I knew that I had made a mistake.
It looked the same, as I drove by - mechanically raising a hand to that neighbour who would have heard it all unfold.
It looked wild and tangled and empty.
Like me.
As if you had never been there.
But I know that inside, lies the strangest of things; my boots - mud stained and sorely missed, the posters that belonged to you - that we stuck to the walls - they fell down over and over, the pool we couldn't keep clean, the outdoor setting and the deck and the possums and the places where we both sat in silence.
You; under the deck and frantically smoking and promising the world with your words.
Me; curled up in the front garden, silently sobbing in a corner, ashamed and embarrassed and lonely.
Crying quietly, I wouldn't want to wake the neighbours.
---
It only takes seconds and then I have to pull over, to deal with the nausea and sadness and guilt. I spew the taste from my mouth - if only it were that easy - to spit up the memories and sadness and hope that I held and I still hold so close.
I drive on and I try to cry, but I can't. I don't. I won't. I shan't.
Dry eyed, I pull up to this home that isn't home.
Because you aren't in it, ruining me from the inside.
