An Ex Lives In Brooklyn

when the ghost of the past is yourself

So last weekend I visited this house in Brooklyn that was not mine, never would be. Nor would I want it to be. But not so long ago, I would have done anything to make it mine. Try to fold into the well tread fibers of the color splashed Moroccan rug in the hallway. To fade into the wood grain of the bench in the backyard, among the generous green designed by horticulturists who lived there before him, them. Not me. 

My ex-boyfriend is giving me a tour of his new home, while wrangling a new harness around his black and white spotted dog. My ex always wanted a dog and this one seems to fit perfectly at his side. Back when we dated in LA, I longed to disappear into his eclectic world, to find a home among the closets cluttered with scraps of his poignant memories. I thought it was because I loved him—of course that was a big part of it—but I ached for a firm place in his life so I wouldn’t have to claim my own. I preferred to propagate a strand of identity from some else’s big busy full life.

For that dream to become reality, proximity was key. I needed to be asked to stay, really stay beyond the levels of his unsure-young-love-commitment. I did what I could, showing up with little ideas for care. Hoping they would stick, that I would stick. If only he could see: he needed me as I needed him. But that was not enough to disguise my lack of personality. Really, I had personality potential, I just squashed it prematurely. Not that anyone asked me to—least of all my ex. Instead of giving myself a real chance, I hoped to shimmy into the cracks of his sunbaked deck. To go unnoticed as long as possible. I took shallow breaths in his house, hoping no one would catch my dimension. Because what if my angles didn’t fit.

Yes, it was hard seeing his gaze land on women who knew how to shine. He was drawn towards them, his gravity overpowered. I wondered if he would ever look at me with such a glow. Still, I couldn’t risk even wriggling towards expansion. I needed to secure my place in his orbit. I figured I had to shrink to find compatibility. Belonging was all that mattered, even if that required slipping on a shade of invisibility. I thought the feeling of smallness was a fair trade for stability.

In many ways, I was primed to succumb to someone else’s environment. It provided me a natural ease. My parents and I always lived in one bedroom apartments, personal space was not something I considered. My perception warped, I grew quite convinced nothing lay beyond our walls but an unfeeling void. Best to steer clear of any wide open stretches. 

My ex is in love with a girl, they moved coast to coast as a couple. They’ve probably been together four or five years, judging by my calculations. It’s been six since I last saw my ex. When I took off my shoes in the new house, I wondered if she was somewhere within. Did she know to expect me? Visiting this house wasn’t part of our lunch plan. I honestly hoped she was in there, I love meeting a mystery. But the mystery was not present—unless she slipped into the gold shimmering stained glass above the staircase. 

He showed me the wood paneling in the dining room. The bay windows in his bright airy office. The paintings he’s gathered over the years. He only collected records when we were dating. Art is a new thing. He opened another door, and here’s her office—I exhaled a soft swell of relief on her behalf. She has a whole room! She was not operating like I did. I was polite enough to just glance, though I wanted so badly to comb through every wrinkle in the upholstered chair. To trace the outline of every leaf on every plant. Reflexively gathering evidence, as I did in his old home. 

Instead, I followed him to the bedroom, with a big bed, messy sheets. I stayed in the doorway, stopped myself from joking this is where the magic happens and nodded when he pointed out the cactus that used to be in his LA bedroom—and the plant with white splotches on the lazy teardrop leaves. The one I took a self-timer photo with, back when I would spend nights in his bed when he was out of town. 

I’d plunge onto the crowded 10 Freeway after work, swimming upstream just to sleep in his bed. My face smushed on the graphic tees for pillowcases. Hoping, sometimes, that I would wake up and be very very small, two pennies tall. I could make a home in the comforter and never have to face the world. I’d outsmart that void, beckoning me to expand, like our universe seems to do so effortlessly. 

Instead, I’d wake up and deny the growing distance between our two planets. I tried to summon his gravity, to stay suspended in his orbit for a while longer. I practiced changing my opacity, hoping to blend with the wallpaper. For a time I thought it was working—I’m nothing if not an optimist. 

My ex says his old house—the one in LA I tried to seduce—had a foundational issue. Something about a water leak, loose earth, unsteady perch. I am in his new kitchen now, filling up my water bottle from his sink. He is standing in the doorway with his dog. Oh I call out, sorry about that, I wanted to leave a lasting impression—so you wouldn’t forget me. 

He doesn’t hear the joke, I repeat it, but my second delivery almost sounds real. Of course the house didn’t really care about my absence (or presence) but it’s funny to imagine it missed me so much, it spit tears into the earth, burrowing a hole so bad it cost tens of thousands to fix.

The house hid its inner void for years. That old house beat me at my own secret game.

Grief was the thing that finally made me visible. That’s when I learned the universe will go to any length to show you how to change. An uncontrollable chaos descended on my family, bringing life into my cheeks in a way that I hated. I had to reckon with how much I thrive in crisis, how the only personality I’d truly flushed out was that of a caretaker. I was 24.

By that time he’d already begun to notice my practiced invisibility, but this moment provided glaring evidence. Boom. I was knocked out of his centrifugal force, flung from the orbit of his big life. There was the void. We danced around a messy break up, but the end result was inescapable. After a few earnest tries at civility, we stopped talking. I had to shatter the self-hypnotic path I traced around his world. 

Shocking to discover, it wasn’t so hard, being my own person. After years of fighting against myself, I kind of liked me after all. The thrill of riding existence comes only when you take the reins. 

Time passes, the gap expands. Entire galaxies swirl into the space between us.

Then fate brought us to his new house in Brooklyn, after lunch, to pick up his dog for a walk. 

He says he drove across the country with a truck full of LA furniture. He points at things and says, do you remember this? And I say yes, I remember. What I don’t say? Yeah, I memorized your things like a Private Eye, searching for cracks where I could hide. 

A specific egg shaped LA chair conjures a parallel universe: a distant version of me floats through the new house. There I was, if I had held onto something neither of us wanted. There she was, I was, dialed to a low opacity, searching searching for her reflection in the photos of his family. Finding a wavering mirage, copy of a copy, flickering, printer low on ink. 

He breaks my communion with the apparition, asking is that your water bottle on the counter—it’s not—he asks which iced coffee is yours? To me it’s very obvious, mine has way less liquid inside the cup. For a moment, I am imprinting, the space has welcomed me already. The gravity of this planet grabs my hand for a moment too long. Already a great set up, you just need to find a spot to shrink, to hide.  

This time, I know my place and it’s not in Brooklyn. This time, I am an observer, not an active participant. I walk with my hands clasped behind my back, we wrap up the tour and return to the sidewalk, with his dog on a pink leash leading the way. 

I marvel at the ways he is the same. He notes my tendency to do something without looking back. We know each other, even though we don’t know each other. How can you catch someone up on five years? Over lunch? And a quick walk in Brooklyn? 

And what is the point, really, in doing so? Just to feel the reverberation of previous versions? To wonder if I am still small, no growth at all, jokes on me? No—

Rewind, hold on, let me grab my iced coffee from the counter. Let me put my shoes on. Let me take a big breath of fresh air, not the molecules tinted with smells of LA furniture. Let me get a fucking grip. It’s good to do things like this, the world outside is not a pointless void. It’s amusing and rare to see an ex and talk about how far we’ve come. To say, no of course I don’t hate you. To actually be happy for one another. Proving that distance was the best thing for us both. To agree that we understand.

From time to time, planets draw each other close. We can marvel at the play of shadow, the absence of light. The drama is high, but it is temporary. The planets continue on, their own orbit unbroken. A small blip. The sun caresses them both, as though warmth never left. 

It’s not so often you see the past fold into and drop out of the present, in a blink. In Brooklyn of all places. I’ve never felt so far from home—a home I’ve cultivated for real this time. Where I let myself exist at full opacity and I am loved deeply for it. Somehow I got everything I ever wanted, but first I had to give up all attempts at subterfuge. Release and embrace the void, till one day it held me back.

He walked me to the subway station, I said goodbye to the dog, who presses, for a moment, against my shin. Until next? Will there be a? I don’t say that. Gravity can’t get me this time. I swipe my train fare and head on my way—

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