Monday, July 14, 2025

Secondary disclaimer: I put too many words into this. This was, however, necessary to give me the occasional thing to do in between crying spells. The bulk of this is setting the stage so skip to the last two blocks of text if the length is challenging.

The one memory that I think of when I try to go back to what are the best memories I have is a surprise from my partner of a cache of items he left behind before he, well, left me behind. During our relationship I loved him as my favorite person on Earth past, present, or future. He taught me many of the "adulting" skills that I just didn't get at home. It wasn't out of a particular knowledge of psychology, he just knew these things from having them modeled to him as a kid, and in the same way taught me. I had a dysfunctional avoidant attachment style, meaning I isolated and would rely on alcohol to control my feelings instead of confiding in humans. I was too afraid. I even had my own motto for isolation: If you cannot reach me, you cannot hit me! I had no awareness of the fact that I needed connection because all humans do, until my therapist clued me in on that fact.

However, B. patiently cracked my shell. I tried to break up with him when I sensed we were getting close emotionally. He pretty much refused that, and persuaded me to give this thing a try. Honestly that was off the charts on how kind of a response that was. I wanted to walk away because he was healthy and I wasn't - meaning I would have gone off and found a partner who was equally dysregulated, sending my life's trajectory in an unimaginably worse direction. That is just setting up the background, though. During our close-distance relationship and living together phase, I often would wonder to myself if my love was reciprocated, or were we in a weird codependent situation where he got satisfaction out of care-giving, and I needed the help so I wasn't about to turn that down. When I looked in his eyes and heard his voice, though, I was cured of my misgivings. We had a love that nobody else I know has ever experienced. I really don't understand how I got that lucky, but I guess that's exactly why we call it luck. I did not know the idea of "love languages" until after Death had parted us.

When I did learn about love languages* and that one was giving and receiving physical touch (me) while another was doing little kindnesses for the partner (him), boy did a lot of puzzle pieces suddenly come together. I realized that not only was our love valid the whole time, but that he was constantly showing me he cared in his own way! I don't even need to be told that this is healthy as opposed to codependent. I feel it on a visceral level.

Now to the gift. He left behind at least a few months' supply of personal care items that he knew to work for me. My favorite facial moisturizer, which at the time was only available at Macy's at over $1 per milliliter. The right (but kinda pricey) facial cleanser, for example. Nothing super huge or beyond the ordinary, but I knew what it meant because it was coming from him. To me it was a treasure because I received it as a final gesture of affection from my favorite person ever.

Epilogue: I did, of course, use the items. I admit that I did want to create a little shrine to keep them as relics, but he would have been super pissed if I did that. I do have a couple mementos of him with one bearing his handwriting. I am keeping and venerating those, but they are not at all bulky.

* I do understand that the idea of love languages is controversial. It's of course, subjective, so necessarily entirely arbitrary.