Fragments Part I - The Closet of Memories

Fragments of myself were left behind a long time ago. Each fragment is an image or more of a space, a room, a moment. The image never changes although, oddly enough, each one is of that final moment before my life changed. Some are moments when I realized something about myself and changed how I moved through the world and others wreak of tragedy and despair. Each one a memory frozen in time. 

There is a hall closet somewhere in a PG County apartment that is now filled with someone's shoes, coats, paper towels or toiletries but, in 2013, that closet was the guardian of my childhood memories. Every musical I was in, every voice and piano lesson, dance class, choir rehearsal and performance. My entire Jack Skellington collection which included 2 purses, 2 blankets, some keychains and several of my own drawings, a binder filled to the brim and pockets bursting with sheet music, the whole Annie sheet music book (you just KNOW it was the full Broadway set of songs, no versus or songs missing😜), dance shoes, drawings, old birthday cards, and 14 journals documenting my own thoughts and feelings of my life experiences ages 13 through 22. My favorite most prized possessions at the time. Proof that I had done the things I told stories about. My only remaining connection to my childhood dream of being a performer.

My ex and I were evicted from that apartment in December 2013, 4 months after I gave birth to my daughter, Leticia (Leh-tee-see-ah), and 2 months after my ex had decided that not only was he not going to marry me but, we should break up. [side note: what an absolute LAUGH that he should be shocked by the fact that I didn't cry or lash out. I took it in stride and when he asked me why I was so calm about it, without missing a beat I said, "I don't want her to feel me being upset. She can sense it." because, of course he broke up with me while I was holding her.] I ended up having to move back in with my mom and step-dad, baby on my hip and only what I could fit into an RX-8😣*, with a car seat in it. I could only take so much. 

The contents of that closet, my whole childhood, left behind. The left closet door fully open, exposing the now messy pile of books and blankets and knick-knacks having done what I could to sort things. The door on the right side is still cracked open, ever so slightly. A white kitchen-aide mixer, a gift from a friend sits in the back of my mind but I have no where to put it so, I walk out, holding Leti in the car seat. I close the apartment door and lock it behind me. Never to return. 

I had to give the car back to my ex and be back at my mom's by a certain time. I did it by myself. The packing and hauling with my Leti in the car seat coming with me in and out of the apartment and then the townhome until I could finally sit down and rest. 

All of my stuff is probably buried in a landfill somewhere unless someone decided to treasure any of it for themselves. I wonder sometimes if someone found my poetry and started using it for themselves. But, I guess I will never know. 

Have you left a fragment of yourself somewhere?

*RX-8: A mazda sports car with a rotary engine. Not at all a family car. You could only take a road trip with the clothes on your back. What trunk space? My ex was obsessed and you guessed it, it was in my name, not his, because credit. 

Coming Soon: Fragments Part II - Creepy Sounds from the Basement