#put away

Put Away (Shadowmoor) - Matt Cavotta

치워 요

DAILY VOCAB

形 ( かたち ) shape

片付ける ( かたづける ) to tidy up

課長 ( かちょう ) section manager

勝つ ( かつ ) to win

‘Stay’ AnimBox 02 by  mrgallaghory

I always assumed the day I returned this shirt to you, the one I took without asking permission, [one of the ballsiest things I ever did] would be the day I got over you.  It stopped smelling like your cologne within a year of me having it.  One night I slept in it and my mom heated the house with a space heater and the whole house reeked of kerosene and I was in tears over your shirt smelling like it, too. I don’t even wear it anymore, I put it in a box in 2013 or so when I was happy.  I’m not really happy anymore, but I thought it was a good sign that I’d kept it put away.  Plus, there was this somewhat irrational concern that the more I washed it, the more it would fall apart, and the less it would belong to you.   And, it hasn’t been in your possession for 9 years so I guess, in a way, it doesn’t belong to you anymore, but washing it makes it seem even less yours.  I’ve considered writing this letter and packaging this shirt more times than I want to admit in the last handful of years.  I’ve looked up your address on White Pages and it looks correct, based on the limited information you share on your Facebook profile at least.  It’s funny, I just realized the other day that I forgot when your birthday is.  It took me 7 years of not talking to you to forget your birthday and your phone numbers.

I can think of 4 reasons that I’m not returning this to you:  

1)  I’d be losing 1 of the 3 pieces of proof that I have that you ever existed in my life.  I still have the one picture of us, from the day we met.  Embarrassingly I have multiple copies but it’s still the same picture over and over again.  Our MySpace messages are gone now (thanks to the updates), and the messages on Facebook are limited because by the time I got a Facebook, I also had a phone that could text - time is such a crazy thing, huh?

2)  I’m worried that the address is wrong - I can’t very well message you and ask you to confirm it, can I?  I’m worried that if I send it anyways, the package will get lost somewhere out there in the world or it’ll be sent back to me and all this build up and over thinking will have been for nothing.  

3)  If I write this letter out and say all of the things I want to say, what if it put strain on your marriage?  Admittedly, there’s a part of me that wants that, but a bigger part of me doesn’t want to be the catalyst for anything bad in your life.  Any time you think of me, if you ever think of me at all, I want you to think about the amazing times we had - me young and beautiful and so wildly in love with you I’d have done ... anything for you.  Of course, I could always just send the package with no letter, no explanation, just returning something that belonged to you from a decade ago.  (How did that happen?)  Or, god forbid, you’d get this letter and you and your wife would read it and you’d laugh at how I still sound like a 17 year old girl hung up on a guy who never loved her in the first place.  

4)  And the most likely scenario:  you probably just don’t care.  You never mentioned it when we were talking, and many years have passed since then, and chances are if I were to send it you’d just toss it because it hasn’t existed in your life for years, and you’ve moved twice, so why keep it anymore?  Would it bring you joy? 

My want for closure seems selfish.  The way alcoholics making amends can sometimes seem selfish - necessary, but selfish all the same.  “I want you to know that I feel this way,” just to leave you there with all these stirred up emotions and questions that you can probably never have an answer for.  I want answers I can never have, truths I probably don’t even want to hear.  I want something to prove to me that everything I thought you were was wrong.  I want to know that I’m better off, that someone, even better than you, is out there waiting for me.  But even with a letter and returning this item, you can’t prove that to me.  You can only prove that we weren’t meant to be or else you’d never have fallen in love with your wife in the first place.  I want you to be ask torn up over me as I am over you - but that’s not real.  I’m the one hanging on - to you, to the memories, to the one picture I have of you (and us), to your Facebook friendship ... to your shirt.  I always said the day I return this shirt to you is the day I am over you...oops.

Always,

Me