In which I had entirely too much damned fun at the party, just like I knew I would, but oh holy FUCK my head hurts. And the word of the day is ‘bittersweet.’
I went over to Baby Girl’s yesterday afternoon intending to stay only long enough to firm up our transportation plans to the party, but as we were visiting in her living room a tree limb fell out of the tree she parks under and smashed her car. The morning’s thunderstorms had been past for a couple of hours, the sky was blue, and there was no wind, but a big damn branch decided to drop 30 feet and do at least two thousand dollars worth of damage anyway.
So I stayed to take pictures for her claim and hang out with her while she called her agent, landlord, and the police. Eventually I split for home to shower, then I went back to pick her up… and long story short, I didn’t get out to The Ex’s party until 7:30.
The party was quite well along when we arrived. Uncle L was BBQing up a storm in the bottom level of the barn, one dude was already passed out drunk in The Ex’s truck, tents were going up, and there was a pack of yellow dogs begging partygoers shamelessly for bratwurst. There was power to the barn and a boom box was playing music. The Ex waved at me, and I went to chat with him for a moment. There were friends in from out of town, and I went for a round of hugs. The yellow dogs had to say hi and put their muddy paws on me.
NLW finally got me focused on lemondrops, so she and I and a couple other women snuck into the house to make a batch. The women were asking me left and right where things were and if they could do this or that. I kept saying, “I have no idea where anything is, and I can’t answer questions of permission because I don’t live here!” It was amusing, because as four of us were making lemondrops and the other two were organizing food to take out to the barn, they all kept asking me things anyway – “Are there any serving spoons we can take outside?” “Do you know where a measuring cup is?” “Can I use this pitcher?” – and then giggling once they realized they’d done it again.
It was so strange, so foreign. That room used to be my kitchen… but now I don’t know where anything is. It looks completely different. I’ve never in my life felt so awkward, so very much like a guest. That room and I had no relationship any more, my kitchen of five years.
Aki had made a divorce cake and it was in the fridge. It was a three-tiered chocolate cake with buttercream frosting and blue piping, with Homies arranged on the very top. It was beautiful, even with the silly toys on it. Unfortunately everybody forgot about it and it was never served. (I’m hoping The Ex will bring me some next week when he comes to pick Truck up for work.)
After we’d made our pitcher of lemondrop martinis, I sent basically everyone outside on one pretense or another and took a peek through the house. My goal was to find and take my warez folder – I’m getting sick of not having my software library handy – and to pull the hard drive out of my computer.
When I walked through what had been the living room, it had very few things in it – and basically all of them mine. No couch, no TV, no rug… a practically empty room, with a table in the corner covered in dusty knickknacks.
Upstairs, I glanced into what had been, when I moved out, the master bedroom: now it’s a… living room? There’s a couch in there, the entertainment center, a propane wall heater I’m convinced had never been there before, the end tables. My office chair. Ashtrays: he smokes inside now.
I looked in to what had been my office, and… the room is now a bedroom. He’d moved all of my crap for me (and I’d had a lot of stuff in there). I was both pleased (that he’d done the work for me) and dismayed (that damn near all traces of my having lived there are now erased). I crossed the hall and opened another door: all my stuff had been consolidated and moved into one of the under-construction rooms. I went in and felt around but it was past dusk and the room has no fixtures. From what I could tell in the near-dark, things weren’t badly treated but they’re not packed, just stacked in a room that is, with its lack of drywall or insulation and occasional holes where the siding is missing, nearly open to the elements. I imagine what’s left in the old living room will end up there if The Ex’s organizational spree continues, and soon I’ll just back my jeep up to the steps and load it all out.
Without a flashlight there was no point in even trying to go through anything, it’d been moved and stacked and I didn’t know where anything was. I closed the door and, feeling somehow both lighter and heavier, went outside to join my friends – and the martinis – on the porch. Continue reading I don't know what you did last night, but I went to my divorce party.
