Yesterday I found myself wandering through the Christmas section of a nearby department store.
It’s cold here in Stockholm. Minus fifteen. And it’s dark. And I’ve moved to a small flat, which I share with my two sons … who like to wrestle and bicker and play Fortnite. There’s also a litter tray, because the cat is approximately 110 years old and she won’t leave the house in these temperatures, under any circumstances. Plus, I mostly work at home.
I had to get out.
For pizza, I told my boys – because on a side note, my cooking mojo has packed up and vanished and I’m truly not sure it will ever return. Anyone else feel like this?
So, there I was, a middle-aged river, swollen in places (right ankle, an old arthritic injury) meandering through a few ox-bow hours, ending up in the Christmas department … where I stood and watched several other middle-aged women, equally lost, pick up glittering baubles and run their hands over embroidered tablecloths. And watching them a strange feeling came over me. Strange as in the sense of almost unknown. I felt happy. And I felt as if I’d been released from something. And I felt hopeful.
Let me explain.
As I watched, I remembered this time last year. And it was as I remembered, that I began to feel all of the above. Because this time last year I was any one of those women. It wasn’t tablecloths or baubles for me, it was stars. Paper stars. And this time last year, I was wishing on them, I was building impossible dreams around them.
They were beautiful. Hand-crafted and exactly the shade of the curtains we had. They were also ridiculously expensive, and I spent far too long agonizing over the cost. For a couple of weeks, I returned again and again to the same store, unable to make a decision. The price seemed outrageous, but they would, I reasoned be perfect.
And of course with every visit, I went further.
I stopped reasoning, and started imagining. I started dreaming. … the cozy interior, the festive scene.
I put – if not all- then certainly far too much faith in those stars, convincing myself they would be the final touch, they would make it perfect.
I bought them.
But the stars were made of paper, and they never pretended to be made of anything else and they simply weren’t up to the job of holding my dreams and expectations. (Who, and what is?) And barely three months after they had been packed away, I discovered that as my head had been filled with stars, my husband’s head had been filled with other things. Our Christmas table may have appeared perfect, but anyone lifting the tablecloth would have soon discovered the deceit and lies stacked up there. As I, in time, did.
So fast forward a year, and I’m watching these women (there are no men) and I’m thinking and remembering all this, but I’m also thinking about much more recent history. Just a couple of days ago in fact when we got the crate of Christmas decorations out.
It’s heavy. And it’s down in the cellar and I could have done it myself, (I once bought and stuffed into my car, an entire flat-packed Ikea kitchen). Or I could, in my mid-fifties, finally start asking for help.
I asked. I asked my soon-to-be-ex. He was bringing our son back from the weekend anyway, we had things to discuss and I figured I’d ask if he wanted to eat with us, and he could help me with the crate.
He could do the crate, he said, but he couldn’t stay and eat. And my heart felt the punch because I knew why.
He’s onto his second relationship since our marriage fell apart. (What a rolling stone, eh? Moss and all that). So I knew he couldn’t stay because … well you join the dots.
I got through the evening with my son and you know what? My heart recovered quite quickly, and it really wasn’t too bad. The next day, my older son helped me with the crate and we did the tree.
And of course, I found those paper stars. All so carefully folded and returned to their original packaging, it’s obvious I expected to get years and years out of them.
But they’re complicated these stars. They each hold a low wattage lightbulb that needs connecting to a celling fitting, that then needs connecting to a power point.
I couldn’t be bothered. I had zero interest and zero desire to put myself through the trouble. I looked at my sons and they looked at me and we all said a collective, Nah! And I put the stars back in their little boxes.
I didn’t throw them away. I was tempted, but they are lovely and they were expensive and maybe one day, someone whose dreams are more robust, have legs of their own and don’t need such flimsy props, will string them up and enjoy them. Or maybe the day will come when I’m more robust, and I have the time and energy, because it’s true. Change is happening within. I can feel it. We think in images first, that’s how we are able to imagine a future. And I have very recently begun to be able to picture a place for me and my children. It doesn’t sound like much; in truth it’s a lot. But that’s not now.
For now the stars are back in the crate, and the crate is back in the cellar. Out of sight, out of mind.
Life goes on, and I truly hope that very soon, for the third time in less than two years, I will be on the move again. And although this will be the biggest shift in thirteen years, a move from Sweden back to the UK, I already have the feeling that it will be the lightest.
There’s so much to say here, and I’ve already started the post, but for now it’s enough for me to know that the only thing carrying the weight of my hopes and dreams, is me.
Until next time,
Cary
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Oh my Cary, so much of this resonated with me! First of all, yes, "my cooking mojo has packed up and vanished and I’m truly not sure it will ever return." I can barely even bake these days. What has happened?? :) And the stars and the metaphor(s) they hold. I love how you wove this story. There is so so so much to say about a marriage dissolving and the days following and the interactions with your ex ( I call mine the Once Husband now. It seems softer and more representative that we had a huge life together). I love how you just told this one part. I used to think I could tell the whole story of me and my once in one full swoop and it turns out I cannot. Our story comes out in little wisps of love or pain in my writing here and there. And I think that's how it is for me. That marriage is utterly woven into the fabric of me. I am not that woman anymore, but I love her and want her to feel welcome in the new me.
I could feel your hope and your ties to the you of last year but are no longer now. It was just a beautiful piece on coming into your own as a woman after divorce. Thank you for sharing! ❤
Beautifully written. I too have been one of those women in the department store, searching, and you bring dignity to that sense of being lost.