Did you know a refrigerator could be an emotional minefield?
And no, I'm not talking about dieting.
I cleaned out the refrigerator tonight. For the first time since Matt went away. For the first time in sixteen months.
For some of you, that would mean there would be a few expired jars of pickles here and there. Not for someone like me, for whom "cleaning out the fridge" is pivotally important.
By the way, did you know it was possible to grow black mold in the fridge? Oh yeah. And white and green kinds too. It was the black kind that surprised me the most. Isn't that the kind that gives people serious health issues?
When EMILY says she "hasn't cleaned out the fridge in 16 months," she means that literally. If it hasn't been eaten, it hasn't been thrown away. All of those boxes of fresh vegetables and fruit I got from Farm Fresh to you? (Fresh fruit & vegetable delivery service). Still sitting pretty (black, mushy, and oozing in piles of liquid unidentifiable liquid) in the fridge. I found pudding that expired in 2009. Eggs. When was the last time that I bought eggs? Was it one year ago, or two?
Don't worry, I didn't open the carton.
As I systematically filled two yard-sized black trash bags with item after item of mushy, expired, or health-hazard waste, I knew I really wouldn't be doing this if I didn't 'have' to. The reason I 'had' to was because I came home from Trader Joe's with one too many salads than will fit in the small coveted space at the front where I usually keep the things I actually eat.
When I got to the bottom shelf, at the back, I stopped dead in my tracks. Five Coca Cola soda cans, in their cheery red aluminum greeted me, along with their 2010 expiration dates. They were Matt's. We bought them for him for when he came over. I only drank diet. I swallowed hard, but I was okay. It was when I saw the bottle of Huckleberry soda right behind it that I lost it. I sat on the floor and heaved out sobs. Then I stood and cried. I stomped my feet and just... whimpered out this angry growl.
The soda is my favorite in the world. My dad and I bought it at Galco's, a specialty grocer in Los Angeles proper. They are Jackson Hole brand and we had never been able to find them anywhere else except mail order. I coveted and carefully selected the time in which I would crack open each of the six sweet bottles. Except the last one. Which I had carefully tucked into the back of the fridge and saved. I wanted to share it with Matt. I wanted him to have this piece of me, this thing I loved, and tell him all about it. I wanted him to experience it with me and tell him all about my dad and how we found Galco's on a Huell Howser special in the mid 90's and had gone there every few years since for a few special things, which we'd then save and share and rub it into other people about how they had missed out on going. Sun Drop, Ni-hi Peach soda... old fashioned candy. It's just one of those special places. I wanted Matt to be in on that part of me and my life and this special ritual with my dad. One that I won't be able to experience many more times, if again.
He had never been to the house again after I brought the bottle back. It was still there, waiting for him. Right next to his soda. I've been waiting for him, all this time. I don't clean the fridge because nothing can change. I just put things in it and wait. It's truly like he died and just, all of his things were left here. Finding them is like a minefield of pain. You never know when you will stumble into one and get hit. The obviously ones... the ring on my finger, the pictures... they are easy to hide or pack away. The little things, like that little unassuming bottle of soda in the back of the fridge, hidden by sixteen months of garbage are harder to find.
When I opened my eyes I found myself staring eye to eye with the engagement ring ads I had ripped out of magazines to show him. Still on my fridge, attached with magnets.
You feel paralyzed and broken.
Maybe it affects me differently or deeper or in a more messed up way because of who I am. I am someone with a genetic predisposition to depression. I am someone who was struggling with depression before any of this even happened. But I was making it. The problem is, I think of so much of that time with him, the time I was with him, as this huge ray of joy and highlight in my life.
When everything before and after has been awful, it makes remembering this time when you were so happy, much more painful, and moving on... A fantasy.
And on that note. My fridge is clean. And I take another step in the right direction. My house isn't clean, and my heart doesn't trust, but my fridge is clean and that's a lot.
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