getting rid of that damn dress

The last time I wore this dress, I threw up. The last time I wore this dress, I graduated from college. The last time I wore this dress, my grandfather died. The last time I wore this dress, was a first date. The last time I wore this dress, it ripped up the seam at work and I had to fix it with safety pins as not show everyone my ass. The last time I wore this dress, was when it was finally was fixed. It was out of style and I had to throw it away. But this dress had been with me through it all-through the barfing, celebrations, one of my most intense sadness of despair-simply put beginning and ends. So how did I give this dress up?

I actually didn’t for a while. I brought it with me from Boston, to New York, to DC and back to California. I couldn’t get rid of it. Rid of it until my friend looked at me and said come on Kate it’s time. You have a million other dresses. It’s time to let this one go. Letting go. I’m not too good at it at all. This dress was my best friend and companion and although ripped and unable to wear it- we had just been through too much, too much -to let it go. Letting go. I am a pack rat of the worst kind. I collect things that have memories, everything from dresses, to cards, to movie stubs from years ago, to old photographs, to anything that reminds me of someone, someone I once cared about. I have shoeboxes upon shoeboxes of memories. I keep things that are broken because a boyfriend gave them to me. Because this person I once loved gave me it. I can’t let go.

Letting go of the object, is letting go of them. Which makes me feel like a failure. It makes me sad in a terrible way. So I hoard things, I hoard people, I hoard the memories of them because although I might see the reality of how it all ended up, this idealist, this dreamer doesn’t want the regular material things, she wants things that mean something. Like this dress. This dress that got me through. This person that got me through.

When I did this I knew, it’s not about the dresses, or movie stubs, just like it’s not about those other people. It’s about me. It’s about me. It’s about me. Me being unable to deal with endings. Me not being able to deal with closure. Me not being able to deal with goodbye and meaning it. Meaning it. Meaning it in a way that I don’t hope you come back. Come back ever. There is always a piece of me that wants that person to walk, walk in the crosswalk right in front of me in between the asian woman, and blind man, and large dog walking towards me now.

Because the truth is I always look in front of me for the face of a familiar past shared. The anticipation of the possibility warms me. Warms me enough to remember, remember why. Why this is happening. Because once someone leaves, I can’t help but remember her. And wonder where she is. Where is she? And if she might, just might be walking towards me. Right now. Would she recognize her own daughter’s face- a face changed from a teenager to a grown woman? Her own eyes replicated in mine. I guess I am always looking around, waiting for her to come back, come back home.