Absence

Absence

By the third day, I began to wonder.  

He wasn't coming back - he didnt just need a few days. He had made a decision to leave.

I began packing up what was left - there wasn't much, it could all fit in one box. 

As I looked over his room - now empty and lifeless, I noticed something clipped to the bedframe. It was this little portable speaker he’d bought right after crossing into the U.S. It was his personal promise to himself that he had accomplished his dream.

A powerful reminder of what he had gone through and how much he believed in himself. He used to talk about how sound changes a space, how music should move around a room. It was shaped like a silver lock in camouflage colors.

I kept it.

It felt right that the first thing he ever bought here was something that carried sound—and that it looked like something meant to stay closed.

The strange feeling of his absence was like life had been paused mid-scene but it gradually thawed out by the third day. 

The silence was both a relief and a discomfort. The tension that had filled the house started to lift, like air being let out of a balloon. I found myself humming while working, feeling productive again, and then catching a lump in my throat when I remembered the way he’d stretch out the word “entonnnces” when telling a story.

He called that first night to say he was safe. He wasn’t angry, he said, he just needed to be alone for a while. He didn’t like the way he had been taking his frustration out on me. I told him it was okay and meant it. The call ended kindly.

During that time, I reflected a lot on everything - including our relationship and found myself happy in some ways, but really stressed and feeling like I was being held hostage in others. I thought of how it had become one-sided, I was beginning to feel more like a resource for him than an invidual person with my own agency, dreams, hopes, fears and motivations. I didn't think it was intentional, just a natural consequence of dependency. When examining my feelings, I didn't feel in love with him, or heartbroken in his absence, and putting whatever fledgling emotional; connection I had, I had to acknowledge the relationship was imbalanced - it really cant be successful for one person to depend so wholly on another - in addition to the obstacles of communication.

I remembered standing at the door the night he left, looking as his Uber vanished into the night and feeling the oddest sense of relief, and annoyance and dread. By the next day, I felt lighter. By the third, I was dancing around the kitchen while cooking dinner. By the fourth, I started to wonder. By the fifth, I caved and sent a message.

That week, I developed a strange habit without even realizing I was doing it. 

Usually around 11pm, I'd walk to the door and look out. Pondering what had happened and how things had shifted so quickly - on the third night I heard a car pull out front and the opening and closing of doors immediately outside. I was surprised I felt rather ambivalent as I went to the door for the inevitable confrontation, relief that he was okay, but also something akin to not wanting him to come back. I saw it had been for the house next to me, and felt a sense of relief, yet also a small tinge of disappointment. 

As though knowing I had been thinking of him at that moment, he responded to the text I sent earlier. He knew he we had to talk, he planned on calling me  - but needed time to put together what he wanted to say. Before he could continue, I asked the one question I already knew the answer to. The answer of which I knew had somehow determined the fate we would have.

"Saliste Charlotte, si?" (You've left Charlotte, right?) 

He confirmed that he had. He'd arrived in Miami the night before. He had been realizing that he wasn't happy and decided Charlotte wasn’t for him. Miami had family, friends, community, work possibilities, and more of his rhythm. I couldn’t fault the logic, but I could fault the way it happened and the suddenness and unilateral element to the decision without any notice. I found myself growing irritated at the egoism and self-centeredness to push and push and arrive early for his process, and that I was simply expected to manage his last minute decision to leave without a single thought - but then I remembered feeling "but aren't you happier now? and the truth was I was"

He apologized and explained he had almost come back twice as he knew we got along and he really liked the house -  but didn’t want to fake being happy just to get to the same conclusion in a few months. He was also clear that he didn’t want to be unfair to me either and recognized he was becoming difficult. He wanted to focus on a new adventure, check out a new place, settle, reset, and reconnect later in whatever way life has given us. I thanked him and told him that I was grateful we had what we did and that I hoped he had the best time in Miami.

A few hours later, I went into his room for the first time since he left and I started to clean.

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His absence was everywhere. Empty drawers, a half-used bottle of vitamins, an ashtray on the nightstand, a few socks in the closet, a rolled cigar tube with a tiny joint inside, the only 3 pairs of underwear he had left when he had on him when he crossed into the US. How fast 3 months of cohabitation disappeared in eight minutes.

I boxed everything up and put it in the closet - and noticed in a plastic bag was that speaker again, the totem and physical representation of his journey to the U.S, shaped like a lock in blue and brown camouflage. I smiled, connected it and played that damn song he used to blast while getting ready, and within moments I had cried harder than I expected. I decided to put the lock back in the box.

We talked once or twice after and at one point he left me a voice message saying it had been really difficult and he might need to come back. That was the last communication I received from him. I wonder if he had somehow sensed or realized that it wouldn't be possible and that while I hoped he was happy and found success - I was ,much happier and peaceful having the house and my time to myself. 

For the first time in months, I didn’t have to think in two languages and ensure I translated everything for him using a variety of translators, or worry about someone else’s process and try to explain 10 things at the same time.  I didn’t have to be the translator, the helper, the provider or the fixer or even the strain that comes with simply being a friend or boyfriend to someone. Now I was only responsible for me - and that was a huge relief and that was the night I stopped looking out the doors for something I thought I had lost.