February | 2019 | Being Her, (the other woman)...

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Keep busy. Jam pack your schedule. Don’t think.

Errands. Clean your house. Don’t think.

Shovel the snow. Clean out the storage room. Don’t think.

Vacuum out your Jeep. Clean out your closet. Don’t think.

Shop. Read a new book. Don’t think.

Start a new business. Throw yourself into it. Don’t think.

Do laundry. Get new puppies. Don’t think.

Think to do a simple thing, paint a room. Shit. The color. The memories of painting with you. Shit. The memories flood me.

I was standing in the fucking hardware store yesterday. Paint was in the cart, I was still doing good. Walked down the aisle to the painters tape. Still good. Got there and grabbed for the blue tape and it hit me. Don’t think. Don’t think. Don’t fucking think. Shit.

Going back.

Blue tape. Laying on your banister. You liked my ‘painting clothes’. Sweats and an old yankees t-shirt. You were so overwhelmed at how much you had to do before moving into your new house. She wouldn’t help you. You worked two jobs so she could stay home. You made time to paint this house. You had one car and she couldn’t get to you with four kids when you were painting late at night. I loved helping you. The music playing from the little wireless speaker and stretching tape out along each of the baseboards. Paint flooding the walls, taking over the old color the same way my feelings for you grew. Hearing you sing from the hallway as I tapped a bedroom. Remembering how much I loved helping you but how fucked up it was to be there in your house with her not there. There are parts of our story that I don’t understand my judgement. You made me not think at times. I was so clouded by my feelings and emotions.

You came around the corner with tape taping through the door jam and into the bedroom where I was finishing the baseboard in the closet. Moving out to you meeting your mouth with mine. Blue tape being pushed aside. I remember your hands on my face. I remember the smell of the new carpet and fresh paint. I remember thinking I’d do anything if one day we had a house that we could do these things together. The next hour somehow perfect relevant songs played. Somehow no painting got done. Somehow the moon was the only light shinning through that bedroom window. Somehow neither of our phones rang. I remember not having to be quiet. I remember the jokes of what the tape could be used for. I remember our laughter filling the furniture free house. I remember the stairs. Can’t say I’d ever done anything on stairs in my life. I remember the long night of painting following the long moment we had. I remember covering up old paint thinking I was slowly covering up the walls from seeing what had occurred.

What the hell was I thinking. Clearly I wasn’t. Now you’ve moved, and are going through the hardest part of you life and I’m standing in the hardware store holding fucking blue tape with tears filling my eyes. Five minutes have passed and I’m standing in this aisle with people moving throughout the store and I’m standing there looking at tape. Now a new homeowner is standing in the very room/house we painted having no idea the stories the walls hold.

All I wanted to do was paint my son’s bedroom. Fuck.