Down a Different Path

I gave away a comforter today, to Goodwill. Not just any comforter, but the one that Craig and I bought after we got married to match the pretty sheets we got as a wedding gift. It was King size, as all our bedding was. I loved that pattern, it was blues and purples with Delphinium flowers and Lilacs. It fit with our bedroom, the pale yellow walls and the impressionist style wallpaper. I loved my bedroom.

When I moved out last year, I took the Queen guest bed. But it was Fall and I was soon cold at night sleeping, especially alone again. I knew Craig probably didn't want that comforter, it was more feminine so I asked if I could have it, to have something to keep me warm. But it was too big for the bed and I no longer had the sheets to match it, in fact I have no idea what happened to them. So many things scattered for me last Fall, my usual ordered life in disarray.

I bought a down comforter and flannel sheets for my new bed for the winter, but the shoulder seasons here in Maine demand more than the homemade quilt I use all summer. So once again, I had this oversized reminder of what was. As much as I loved this pattern, I no longer loved what it represented.

But like so many things in the last year, it was another symbol and another question of what do I do with it? I finally bought myself a new comforter for my bed, fairly feminine, almost frilly for me. Last night I folded up the old one and put it in its plastic cover and in my car. And today I dropped it off. I actually cried as I pulled away, no of course they aren't tears for a 13 year old faded comforter, but tears for what was and is no longer. A life now changed.

This Friday I will acknowledge an anniversary of the opposite, the day of my divorce. The grief comes back around.