Grey Gifts

Two were the color white, with scattered shades of charcoal in between. One was your typical dark brown while the last was a hybrid of the two, but they all indicated good health so I wasn’t concerned. All were hardened to some degree, laying on a bed of synthetic green blades, partially shaded by a combination of this black metal folding chair with the cheapest plastic laundry basket on top that was procured from some low end store awhile back. These gifts were dropped off by someone that I cared very deeply for and were for me alone to pick up at some point in time, but I thought to myself, that was not this current one.

It was no April Fools Joke that it all felt too much like a personification or metaphor for my life - I wasn’t quite sure which, or if any were correct, to tell the truth - when I paired those gifts with the fresh Black I sipped on way too quickly for someone who “quit smoking” awhile ago. The smoke, grey and terrible for my lungs, billowed around my face and then migrated in their direction, which was narrowly to the left of where I was sitting on the ground of a balcony. I hesitate to even call it that since it didn’t seem to accurately qualify as one. Some, if not all, of the slats that composed this so-called “balcony” had an inch gap between them. A distance so large that my ten pound maltese poodle mix learned to tip-toe carefully between each slender board in a hesitant and fearful manner so as not to end up with her entire leg dangling between them every time she dared to venture out onto it to leave those little gifts.

Surely, I can’t be talking about shit, but I sure as hell am. An ex-husband of mine told me as we were separating for the final time - there were many attempts, but this one stuck - that the only thing I ever really loved in my life was my dog, Ellie Harper. (I gave all my animals middle names. Once I had a white cat with gorgeous pastel blue eyes, his name was William Robert, but we all called him Billy Bob. He won’t appear in any of this shit though, I just thought it was worth explaining that Harper was a middle, not last name, and that she wasn’t the only animal in my life that had received one even though this minor redirection pertains to this story in zero ways.) It wasn’t fiction that I loved that tiny wannabe canine. So much so that when I thought I'd never see her again the night my sister, by way of her husband, burgled her from me during the Snowmageddon earlier that year in Texas, my long-term friend from JROTC - a female nicknamed “Billie” - said, “The one constant being you have with you. You love her so much that I am slightly in fear for your life without her near you.” My younger female cousin, whose middle name is Paige, exclaimed to her mother - a supposed christian woman - who orchestrated the entire dog-napping situation, “She loves that dog so much. If she kills herself because she never gets her back, I won’t be surprised and it will be all your fault.” That is a story for another time though, maybe. My point is, everyone could see that I loved Ellie, so I never had to proclaim it, even though I did pretty frequently and annoyingly to some, including my ex-husband who thought I never loved him when compared to that pup, I’m sure.

I gave everything I could to her as often as I could. I treated her like the only child I would ever have because she was. I have zero interest in leaving a biological legacy for this world. In fact, Ell existed in my life as a birthday gift that sprouted from the elective death of an unhappy accident that would have created an opportune circumstance for me to leave that sort of legacy and prove I wanted otherwise. I was unwaveringly confident that since she was to be my only, she deserved all the maternal love and care I could muster during her short life on this beautiful rotating rock. In return, she gave me love, whatever kind of love dogs can feel or give - selfishly motivated or not, a topic debated by many - and plenty of shit. Literal, of course.

There were two platform fabric beds in the apartment I lived in with my cousin. It started out as hers, but became ours - Paige, Ellie, and me - about two months after she signed her lease. She took me in because I couldn’t afford to move into my own place at the time and she couldn’t afford hers, if I am being honest. She never openly said it beforehand, but it was brought to light shortly after move-in day and was nothing short of a huge secret that birthed a nightmare financial situation for myself. I couldn't slight her though because the "don't ask, don't tell" rule made us both liable. Regardless, I needed to move urgently from the very ritzy and bougie house that belonged to a person I could never accurately describe to the public the kind of relationship we ever had together. (I will note that it was astonishingly rare, to say the very least. I would wager very few people that have lived or are alive will ever experience a connection like “bougie house guy” and I do and I would bet all the gold in the world on that without hesitation.) Those two beds were coincidentally the same style and color, a pretty light shade of charcoal grey, although not purposefully alike as we bought them separately, without coordination, and at different times. Their hue was not unlike the majority of the shit - Ell’s most precious gifts in the world that were clearly an indication of her undying love - laying on the foe grass potty pad, resting awkwardly above the shitty slab balcony I sat on.

There were four “rooms” available to frequent in our shared one-bedroom. Although the dining, kitchen, and living areas were all technically one room. Those three could also be considered my studio, as my bed was sitting pretty in the “living” portion of them. The restroom could only be accessed through the one real bedroom, making sexy times for my cousin and myself - although I never partook in that pastime at this location - more or less entertaining. By that I obviously mean, the opposite of fun. Coincidentally, there were four piles of shit next to me. For a fleeting moment, the connection that there were a pair of both grey shits and beds in my abode was slightly amusing to my strange sense of humor. It ended when my brain realized that my dog’s brown and grey shits were currently sitting on a pile of “green,” whereas both our beautiful grey beds were sitting on an old brown carpet in a shitty apartment and neither one of us were sitting on that metaphorical pile of green. The two of us in our four room studio one bedroom apartment, along with our roommates, the four pieces of shit, were all going through pretty hard times in our life cycles together though, so we had that in common and that was comforting.

Sitting aside those presents, I realized I shouldn’t wait any longer to handle the business of clearing Ell’s hardened favors. Similarly, there was no time like the present to not only do my duty and pick up those doodies, but also focus on the removal of any presence of negativity laying behind and ahead of me. The main and most pressing one being him - bougie house guy. There was no scoop accessible and I had no means of purchasing a figurative or literal one either. The offerings bestowed upon me clearly were not going to foot the bill for one, so I simply had to kill my exceptional procrastination skill, get my hands dirty, and deal with all the shit. In that moment, I felt a sense of urgency to not only pick up my dog’s shit, but to also pick myself and all my own shit up, too.