Someplace That I Used to Know

Gotye has a song entitled "Somebody that I Used to Know."  The meaning of the song can be inferred from the title, though it is a pretty good song about a break-up.  If you are either a bit rusty on what heartbreak feels like, or are looking for a soundtrack to wallow in your post relationship pain, Pete Yorn and Scarlet Johansson's Break Up, Dashboard Confessional, Math and Physics Club, or my favorite, For Emma, Forever Ago, by Bon Iver are good additions to your playlist.

I recently stumbled upon my ex-wife's Facebook page.  I had the idea that there are elements of divorce that are probably like watching your child grow up, but without the joy.  I saw pictures of Caroline wearing clothes that I bought for her, doing activities that I shared with her, and living out fantasies that we had dreamed together.  Yet, I no longer knew her.  As Dan Savage said in a piece on This American Life, "There are somethings a mother is entitled to not know" (or something along those lines), children, seem to also grow into people that parents used to know.  I am sure my parents remember teaching me to do things, that I now do without them.  I imagine, it is heartbreaking to no longer be as important.  That said, for a parent, that was always the intention.  The parent wants their child to become their own person, and the tragedy is when they fail to do that, not when they do.  In divorce, the whole point at the beginning was to never grow apart.  Unfortunately, in relationships, we never dream of the beautiful life our lovers will have after us.  Thus, when I spot a picture of Caroline, cooking dinner on the tailgate of a truck in the brown Arc'Teryx vest I bought her, or in the field in the green jacket my salary covered for her to ski across the Juneau Icefield, I miss what could have been.

Other relationships are different.  I know two people who were in a relationship, that was secret throughout, and has now been stricken from the record.  Much more inline with the Gotye song than anything I feel like I have experienced.  Yet, an ended relationship, no matter what, becomes people who used to know each other, no matter how much evidence there was.  My marriage has $5000 worth of photo-documentation, and these two share a single photograph, but for everyone involved, we no longer know the person we loved.

I have other relationships that have ended.  Relationships with things, and places.  I have owned three cars.  One I sold to my parents.  One is with Caroline.  One was totaled when the transmission ceased when an ex was driving it (after our relationship ended).  These cars, I no longer know.  Yet, so much of who I am, and what I have done has been done in or with these cars, and in my parent's Aerostar.  These cars, like ex-lovers, are only things that I used to know.

Another relationship that ends in life is with where we live.  These relationships, are often much more inline with Gotye's song, than my relationships with people.  When I live in a place, it seems to follow a predictable pattern.  It begins with hope.  I hope, with every ability I have to hope, that this new place will be good.  That this relationship will blossom.  Well... I don't think I can honestly keep that on the record.  I am too skeptical to be that hopeful, and often times, I know, before I arrive, that where I am moving is going to be a terrible place to live.  Maybe I am skeptically hopeful that the place I am moving will not be as bad as I think it will be.

After hope, or whatever it is, comes dislike.  The place is either not as good as I hoped for, or is as bad as expected.  Either way, I dislike it, and start dreaming of escape.  I sink into despair over the state of my relationship with my surroundings.  I try to revive our relationship, and with every failed attempt to reignite the spark that was never there, I resent the place I am living more.  Eventually, I "dump" the town I am living in, and I admit that I am glad it is over.

Yet, I miss it.  What I miss though, is not there.  I have been back to Socorro since leaving, once.  There was the Arc'Teryx vest, but I didn't know the place anymore.  It was said by someone in Socorro, that it "grows on you like a fungus," yet I may have become immune.  The fungus did not flair up when I went back, because the Socorro I knew, existed only during that time.  The Caroline I was married to, existed only in that time.  The car may still exist, but the bond I had with it has expired.

Moving out is comparatively unique.  You must stop, in the moment when it is ending, and deconstruct the relationship.  Room by room, box by box, item by item, your relationship is removed.  Erased, meticulously, so that on threat of financial penalty (via the security deposit), no trace of the relationship can ever be found.  The existence of the relationship is bound exclusively in memory.  Memory too, eventually fades, and the building, town, and people become someplace that I used to know.