Hidden things

We went searching for Christmas decorations in our house last night.  We found the LED lights Jimi put around the front porch last year, but no wreath and certainly no ornaments.  Rats.  We'll try again tonight, I guess.

We did find a lot of other cool stuff, though; stuff we mostly hadn't seen since it was boxed up in our old home in preparation for the move to this, the new home.  A box in the basement had been packed before I left El Paso in early 2006, I believe.  It held a treasure-trove of leftovers from my late teen years and early 20s; a few stuff animals, 2 old bottles of perfume, one I'd never wear again and one that was nearly full because I'd never really worn it - Jimi decided he likes the smell AND the bottle on that one, so I guess I'll have a new scent for a while; costume jewelry worn at prom and military balls; old cassette tapes (Milli Vanilli!!!  And Phil Collins!!!); a potpourri burner I remember "borrowing" from my Momma's kitchen counter; the old, heavy, silver-plated brush/comb/mirror set that was given to me as a child; a pink mesh wire basket in the shape of a pig (Jimi said, "You should take this to work!" and I said "You're only saying that because you want it out of your house!" and he said "You're right!!!" and we laughed and laughed because it was true); a couple of gold-plated rings my grandmothers gave me; a cheap cocktail ring that was my mother's that I'm pretty sure I may have lifted from her jewelry box once-upon-a-time.

I found old letters, too, from Kat, and a few cards she'd sent me.  I opened one up and started to read it; Jimi saw me and said "Is that from Kat?"  I affirmed that it was.  "You sure you want to read it?"  He knows me.  So well.  "You're right.  I don't."  I closed it up and put it back in the box, on top of the others.  I won't throw them away; not yet.  I'm not there yet.  Maybe I'll never be there.  Throwing them away is so permanent; yet another attachment to struggle with.

Speaking of Kat, I had a realization the other day:  you know, she had a lot of crazy shit going on in her head too, I bet.  Between coming home from a year in Kuwait, the boy disappearing from her life immediately thereafter, the craziness that is her family all the time - girlfriend had some shit going on.  And of course, because I'm a selfish fool and usually only focus on myself, I never once considered anything about where she may have been; I knew that I wanted to go out and I wanted to have a good time and I was in the middle of a divorce and I didn't want to spend my nights sitting around scrapbooking and I wanted to go out and meet new men and party and I and I and I, I, I...

I had this boyfriend once; his name was Charles.  Charles was my BFF long before we were anything beyond just friends.  I fell in love with him, and I fell HARD.  And when things fell apart for us, I hurt and missed him for, literally, years.  We were only a couple for a few short months, but it was at least 5 years before I stopped thinking about him every day. 

It feels like that with Kat, too.  I know we aren't meant to be and that it isn't going to work between us, but that doesn't stop me from missing the happiness and joy and light she brought to my life for the...god, how long was it?...15 years we were best friends.  I think about her all the time; I dream about her at least weekly.  I miss her.  I have girlfriends, plenty of them, but none like her; none that I've laughed with so much, none that I've told all my secrets to, none that can finish my sentences, none whose sentences I can finish, none with such a history.  It feels like there's an empty space in my heart. 

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Damn.  That's not where I intended to go with this.  I intended to write about how after we emptied that box in the basement, we moved to the closet in the front bedroom upstairs, where we found the lights that went on the porch last year and did not find the wreath, but we did find an old family photo album of Jimi's, which we're going to transfer into an acid-free album.  Holy shit, we may even scrapbook some of the photos!  My favorite find of the night, though, were 7 new-to-me books I purchased at the Book & Music Exchange shortly before we moved last year.  They'd been packed into a box and forgotten about; I have new things to read and this makes me a happy girl. 

Now if we could just find the Christmas stuff...