The Great Stuff Exchange

The great stuff exchange happens this weekend. I think this is the worst part of any breakup. The bags filled with underwear, socks, t-shirts, the extra razors, a belt, two yellow silk ties, a pair of basketball shorts and a t-shirt featuring a band logo. Separately will be the work shirts, the navy blue suite and the burgundy sweater. The burgundy sweater was always my favorite – he looks so good in it. I’ve washed everything and folded it as neatly as I can. He will have to refold everything because my folding abilities never could match his. We used to say in our household he was in charge of laundry and I would do dishes. He never liked washing dishes and I never could be bothered to fold a fitted sheet. From the consistency of his technique you would have thought he worked at the Gap for years, but it was actually his military training that taught him to be such a great keeper of his cloths – join the military and learn how to pack a suitcase.

I won’t be there when he arrives – I can’t be. I don’t want to see on his face the pain I’m feeling, it would break me and neither of us want that. I‘ve been debating leaving a note for him or a card – something that acknowledges that this is the right decision even if it is a hard one. I want to tell him I am proud of him knowing I'm not the one for him and I suspect he will be married within a year to someone just right. But I don’t know if I can say simply what I want to say and this is not a moment for long winded prose.

I want to be far away when he walks into my place for the last time. I will leave him his keys, maybe using a piece of ribbon from the last gift he gave me to collect them – he will notice a detail like that. Where will I be? I don’t know yet. Where is the right place to hide when the man you once thought you would merry comes to get his stuff? No where seems to be that right mix of private, public, exciting and somber – because I need all of that and a glass of wine.