Present

I open my wardrobe to get a jumper and I barely see them. There comes a point when things have been so long in the same spot that you don’t notice them anymore.

Gifts. Hundreds by now, if I had to guess.

At first I bought a birthday and Christmas gift with the intention of giving them to you when you got back but then you never did. There is a part of me that doesn’t know why I keep buying you a birthday and Christmas gifts but to be honest, I have learned to not fight some of the things I do.

When I heard about your death on the other side of the fucking planet I admit I threw them away, as if to bury the pain. I was so angry at you I couldn’t bear their sight. I ripped all the wrapping, screaming and crying and hating you and everything. I threw them against the walls and kicked them when they were down (literally). And after all the senseless bashing they ended up in the bin.

When clarity hit, as it usually does, I rescued them from the bin. I took pity on them. How was it their fault? It wasn’t. So in the wardrobe they went. At first I told myself I would donate or gift them to someone else but I soon realised that wouldn’t happen. A mix of not wanting to let you go and knowing that if you weren’t here anymore the gifts didn’t make sense stopped me the few times I tried.

The gifts had no other reason to be than to be yours. And since that can no longer be, they just are (and barely at that). They live in a limbo between life and death, between existence and anhilation.

So there they are, occupying space in my wardrobe and a special place in my broken heart.

About seven months after you died and close to your birthday I saw something in that little shop you loved so much. I went in and bought it, forgetting for a slight second that I no longer had the possibility of giving it to you. It only hit me when I was just outside the store. I started crying and laughing at the same time. How could my brain have forgotten something like this, even for a small period of time?

I held the gift tightly, feeling close to you for the first time since I got the news. I took it home and gave it one.

Years have passed and I still do it. Every Chistmas and every birthday.

I have even moved houses. They come with. Numerous boyfriends, girlfriends, lovers and still, they persist. The are the constant in my life.

They have seen everything, been alongside me all this time. Sometimes I feel like they are the glue that keeps my heart fixed enough to survive. Through them I relive you and what we shared. They remind me of it and you. With them I feel that you are still with me.

Maybe that is their reason for existing.

I finally put on my jumper and get ready to leave the house for my date. I do this knowing that there is a kind of love I will no longer newly find but glad that I ever did.