A Ledger From Another Life

Unpacking doesn’t take too long…organizing is what continues to knock on your front door.  A few days ago, I came across an overstuffed envelope of receipts.  They were all food receipts.  Each dated piece of paper jogged my memory.  Johnnies New York Pizza located on Wilshire happened on 09/19/2009.  That was back in September…we were happy then…I think.  Caesar Salad with a small pizza.  We sat in small booth near the entrance.  We bantered back and forth about his I phone pre and post production website.  We were trying to come up with clever titles to his articles.   He held my hand.  He always wanted to be touching me.  I got in the habit of pulling away in order to look through my purse or fix my shirt or pull back my hair…it was easier that way.

07/23/2009 documented one of the numerous times we would walk down from his apartment in Santa Monica to eat outside at the Fish Grill.  Two Grilled Fish Taco plates, one without salsa.  He hates tomatoes.  Kaylyn and I could eat them as apples…and another non transitional fact about tomatoes: KC had me smell fresh tomatoes on the Vine while we were grocery shopping at Stew Leonards…and yes, it is the best smell in the world…it’s the richness and coolness of the earth…and now, I only buy my tomatoes with vine included.  He and I would have this meal practically every week.  We sat in one of two tables.  I’d mix my coleslaw into my baked potato.  He would be wearing his black New York hooded zip up sweatshirt.  Delilah would be on leash attached to one of the chairs.  We were happy…I think.  Yes, I can say we were always happy at the Fish Grill.  Afterwards one of us would walk over to CVS and either purchase Swedish Fish or a Peppermint Patty.

Bloom Cafe on Pico Blvd.  Truly the best omelets packed with chunks of zucchini and mushrooms and then water with a hint of cucumber.  Vicky and I went there one morning when I didn’t have classes until the afternoon.  She picked me up after she had broadcasted on the radio in the wee LA hours.  We had spent very little time together, one on one, up to that point.  Well, there was that stint when I went over to her place after the Avatar fiasco.  I listened to her as she said “it may be an isolated incident”.  I can’t remember the occasion to our breakfast…maybe it had to do with what she asked me when she dropped me back off at my place.  ”Do you want to marry, him?”  And I felt terrible as I lied to her.  ”Yes”.

I do not have a receipt for our last meal together.  He picked up that one.   Appropriately named, we ate at restaurant called SOUTH.  I dressed up…I called it a date.  The past 3 months while I was in school coated our relationship with tension.  I was ready to refocus.  Delilah was in the car in her travel bag.  He was unsure if he had locked the door and went to go check.  As I sat on a tall bar stool and watched him walk down the sidewalk in his staple brown button down shirt…I had a peace come over me.  I decided right then and there that I did want to marry this man.  I loved him.  He was good.  I came to peace with the truth of what he was never going to be able to give me.  I accepted that I would live a sexless life with him.  (did she just write that??)  (she as in me??) (me as in I??).  Yes…I would live a sexless life with him…but we’d work on it and I find it in me to be attracted to him again.  I was attracted to him when we first met…it must be in there somewhere?  We’d go to a sex therapist…we would figure out why he is struggles with it.  And I seriously, felt such peace.

The next day he broke up with me.  And the rest is now.

But all my found receipts are from another time.  Each documenting a time and a place much much different than now.  I wish I could find that receipt that notes the following: “Sarah, You love him but your not in love with him.  It’s time to leave, quit holding on and a pulled pork bbq sandwich with sweet potato chips on the side.”