Birdie

Birdie

Orientation: Day 1

Welp. Here I am I suppose. Freshly orientated. Whatever that means.

My room is small, but I guess what did I expect? I didn’t think they were going to walk me to my palace. It’s a lot more dorm-like. In fact, I’m supposed to have a roommate but, I guess I lucked out.

This is our first assignment, if you will. Write in the journal inside our swag bag. Free association. What am I feeling? How am I feeling?

Honestly? Quite numb.

That’s not what I’m supposed to say but it’s the truth. Stages of grief and all.

Am I in denial? Maybe.

I’ll be honest, I find it really hard to believe that only decades ago people weren’t government-mandated to attend love rehabs after a breakup. Supposedly that’s the truth though. They said it in Orientation today. People were legitimately just expected to go on with their lives and just…function. Can you imagine? It’s like breaking the bones in your leg and then being asked to walk on it. Zero rehabilitation.

I don’t totally buy it, but my folks have said the same thing.

Anyway. This is my first time in an L.R. I get out in three weeks and go to a halfway heart home. Then I can go back to work. Which I need.

What do I feel? I feel like someone gutted my insides out with a dull spoon. That’s what I feel.

Orientation: Day 3

Okay. I admit it. I completely forgot to write in here yesterday. We started these “activities.” They’re meant to de-wire and decondition your habits.

It was…interesting. You start by writing your lover’s name on a piece of paper. You hold it for awhile. People like sit and well they talk, which is nice. We share things. All the while we have this piece of paper with us. Some people fidget with it, ya know? Security blanket-like.

Anyway. We talk about all sorts of things. We’re supposed to avoid bringing our exes up but if we do, we have to hold up the paper instead of saying their name aloud. It’s weird but I guess it wasn’t completely futile.

After everyone was done, you strike a match and poof. Your lover has disintegrated.

They immediately follow this with an exercise where you have to come up with one part of your life where your lover made you not feel so you.

Like this one guy said he never felt completely comfortable growing his hair long anymore because his partner hated it. She called him “Shaggy” in a derogatory way not like a pet name-ish way. And he never forgot it. Isn’t that silly? So for years he was basically shaving just to not be Shaggy guy.

Ha ha you can bet his hair is long now!

Promise I’ll write more tomorrow.

P.S. – I finally got a roommate. She’s super sweet. Older, but sweet.

Day 5: (No more Orientation!)

I feel like I’m in withdrawal. I’ve never gone this long without talking to, well, you know who. (Disintegrated paper.)

I feel like I’m watching myself outside of myself but it’s someone else’s life. I mean obviously the L.R. is not my normal familiar surroundings. I get it.

But also. I don’t get anything anymore.

I’m so appreciative of the program, I really am. I just feel lost. Can a program really mend a broken heart? I know it’s worked for thirty-something years now and I know people can’t be expected to work without it and I know all of the reasons I am here. On paper.

Maybe I’m not giving it a chance.

My new roommate is the sweetest lady. She’s really great. Like the type of woman you wish was your grandma because your own grandma wasn’t grandma-like.

And if it wasn’t obvious. She’s a widow. So it’s like, how can I possibly feel bad for me?

She spent her entire life with this person. Every nook and cranny of her memory is peppered with another human. A human gone.

She hasn’t cried once and here I am sobbing every night into my pillow like a proper toddler.

She loved him, you know. He called her Birdie…Which at first I thought, “what kind of pet name is ‘Birdie’ anyway?”

Then it dawned on me that no one, presently-mourned for included, has ever called me anything really.

Nothing quite like Birdie. Or even Shaggy.

Her name is Delores. My roommate. You can tell she was quite lovely. I mean, she is quite lovely but you can tell she was exquisite.

Am I exquisite now?

Am I the most exquisite I will ever be?

Day 9: We are so far past Orientation

In my defense, I have not written sooner in here because they are keeping us so busy. At first the schedules are kind of loosy-goosy willy nilly. Well, not anymore!

We do a lot of exercises for our brain, they call them “Mindcercises.” They’re good for Dementia too, I hear. Makes sense, you are basically working all these parts of your emotional head you usually just distract away with work or wine or beer or sex. Whatever vice you pull from your big ol’ bag of ammo, ya know.

Here you can’t distract like that. I guess any rehab but I also have never been to one for drugs or alcohol. Rehabbing a human is just ever so painfully different. The chemical parts don’t wear the same way. You don’t stop withdrawal in 72 hours. Some people don’t stop withdrawal ever.

They teach us that here. How to re-wire. How to “not distract but retract.” (There are t-shirts with that slogan.) When you distract it’s basically like walking through the woods and seeing danger like a snake and then turning around (whew!) but then you have to come back anyway, right? Snake never left.

Here we learn to just get to the other side. No turning around. Snake be damned.

I don’t buy a lot of it but I will say, the more I talk to Delores, the more I realize what I had wasn’t worth a damn. We play cards at night now. Every night.

You can watch movies in this communal space and everyone has to provide a list of “trigger films” that remind them of their lover (which is like every film ever made). Suffice to say, movie night is a lot of B quality films that no one has heard of. So Delores and I play Spades. Sometimes Go Fish. One time Poker but I was markedly better so I’m back to Spades and Go Fish.

What she had was love.

What I had was something else entirely.

Day 12: I can’t even remember Orientation

So guess what? Birdie, I mean Delores, and I got to leave for a bit today. It’s part of the Day 12 experience. You have to go somewhere you used to go with your ex but create a new experience with someone else. Even if the experience isn’t that good, it still creates these new pathways in your brain so that you remember that place differently. (Supposedly.)

Delores took me to this diner in town that I’ve only been to once when I was a little girl. That’s where she and Eddie (her husband) went for 52 years! Can you believe that? Fifty-two years of memories. I can’t imagine it was easy for her to sit there with me, instead.

But to be honest, she smiled the entire time. The waitress knew her right away. Didn’t even have to take her order!

I think we were supposed to specifically not order what we always did, with ya know, them.

The waitress brought a grilled cheese and tomato out for Birdie without even asking. (Eddie used to get a Rueben.)

I got ice cream.

FACT: ICE CREAM IS THE NUMBER ONE BREAK UP FOOD.

Day 14: How has it been two weeks?

Today was pretty hard. We spent the whole day doing “sensory activities.” Basically, you purposely trigger all these memories through your senses so like listening to songs, smelling different scents that your partner wore, even feeling a fake Spring or Fall breeze on your face.

They actually have rooms that smell like Autumn and blow leaves!

It wasn’t easy.

I could feel this rush of “then.” Does that make sense? Like I was there. Like everything was frozen in time and the time wasn’t now.

They keep telling me to write my feelings in here and I just don’t know what to say I feel.

I felt a wave of knives and then empty, if you want the truth.

And then. I looked over at Delores and she was having the very time of her life. She looked exhilarated like she hadn’t felt a Fall in ten years.

I think every memory the exercises here bring back to her is pure joy. Then I feel sad for her even though she isn’t even sad.

Then I feel sad that I didn’t have the thing that she very obviously had. It’s like a whole relay race in my mind and ultimately I get back to, “why am I wasting my time on my ex when there is such beautiful love out there?!”

And then we play cards again! And all is well.

(I finally won Go Fish!)

Day 16: Cleared to go back to work!

Today I got an early clearance to go back to work. I’ve tested out of the program and can leave on Day 19.

Three weeks ago I would have told you that I would never survive. That my break up was a volcano and that I was going to choke on the ashes.

Now?

Well, now I’ve seen things! I have seen what a charmed life of love should feel like. And I want it. I want what Eddie and Birdie had. I am thankful for this program and I really support the cause. I mean can you imagine… Just going back on out there in the world, broken heart and all?

Anyway, Delores and I have a card tournament for my last few days here. And I am determined to just get one win in Spades!

Day 18? Day 19?

Saying that I don’t know what day it is would be an understatement.

Today was the most bizarre roller coaster of emotions I have ever felt in my life.

I woke up and Birdie’s side of the room was packed. Just like that. I didn’t even know she was leaving. How could she not tell me? I spent breakfast alone just spinning. Did she test out early? Of course she did. She wasn’t mad about Eddie. She didn’t go through the grieving stages because she was just happy and in love, even in the hurt!

Then it happened.

Nurse Katie came and knocked on my door with a suit guy. They had paperwork. I assumed it was my exit paperwork. I mean, wouldn’t you?

Then they dropped a bomb on me.

Delores is gone.

She passed away this morning.

Which, to be honest, means she is finally with her Eddie and I couldn’t even cry.

But I did anyway.

A lot.

Like every single thing I was feeling for weeks came out at once. Suit guy gave me a handkerchief and to be very honest, I’ve never used one.

And then, they told me that Mrs. Delores P. Sayer, wife of Edward M. Sayer, left her entire estate…

To me.

Me.

My ears rang for a minute and then I was sure they made a mistake.

“No mistake,” Nurse Katie said with a knowing laugh. “Delores came here to spend her final days sharing memories of Eddie. She didn’t have anyone. No kids, no pets, no living family. You made quite an impact on her. We realize this is a lot to emotionally handle, what with your recent ‘separation’ and all. But she did leave a note. In her notebook from Orientation.”

Nurse Katie handed me the little black leather-skinned book.

“Wisdom is wasted on the old my dear. Please, start over. Start fresh. Do anything you wanted to do and don’t wait another day to do it. And for God’s sake, get better at cards.” – Birdie

The End.