04.08.2003 - 4:59 p.m.

�Look! It�s a hanger for pants!� Jake is holding up a hanger with five or six open-sided, horizontal tines beneath the hook. We�re in Wal-Mart, trying to find Jake a hamper despite his clear preference for using his bedroom floor as a platform for laundry-sorting.

�Uh huh. Very cool,� I respond, patented I�m-humoring-you smile firmly in place.

He returns his own patented stare. �You don�t seem impressed.�

I shrug. �I�ve seen them before. My ex had one.�

�Oh.� His nose scrunches up. �He probably used it, too, didn�t he.�

�Yeah. Even his jeans were creased. All the time.� I am wandering into the next aisle. There are tiny mesh hampers, compartmented hampers, corner hampers. Jake�s laundry is like mine�there is a lot of it specifically because we prefer not to deal with it on a regular basis. Most of these hampers are too small, and the ones that are big enough take up floor space better reserved for non-laundry mess items. Books, cds, small African countries. That sort of thing.

Jake�s voice floats over the aisle shelving. �You know, one of these days you�re going to say something about your ex, and I�ll be like, oh, that�s why she dated him. You haven�t said it yet.�

I spend an inordinate time after that trying to figure out what �it� would be. Contrary to my habits in speech, I can, in fact, think of the details that paint him positively. He liked legos and stargazing. He�d always want to be active, to be doing something, and he had a wholehearted enthusiasm for everything he did. He really believed he could change the world. He not only knew exactly what he wanted, but also had the discipline to go get it, no matter what. I admired those things; I wasn�t like that.

It took me forty minutes to write that paragraph, not because it isn't true but because it's hard to keep track of the difference between those original attractors and the excuses I made for him later.

In the beginning there was chemistry that felt like a physical force. Almost the strongest I've ever known. After that faded, I stayed because I liked being needed. Because I started thinking that maybe love was a kind of pride in what you sacrifice for someone else�s dreams.

And if that doesn�t explain why then I don�t know what to say. I�ll probably never say it. There may have been more reasons, better ones, but I�ve apparently chosen to forget what they were.

-stonebridge

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