As I stepped into the hallway, a small package toppled after resting against my door. First assumption: delivered to wrong unit. I don’t order things. I don’t have an insatiable need for more stuff. I picked it up, stepped back in my condo and saw my name and address slapped on the front. Second assumption: shirts. I had, in fact, strayed from “I don’t order things” last week—it’s not a hard rule—and bought two Japanese-style linen shirts online. I may have gotten a little too caught in Vancouver’s cherry blossom season. It was a rash purchase that had me fretting over cultural appropriation. Nothing like Gwen Stefani’s Harajuku Girls
period but, if I wore one of the shirts in public, would I be shamed, spat on and told to stick to tartan tam-o’-shanters and kilts? The Vancouver Japanese Hall National Historic Site is two blocks from me. Risky buy.
“I don’t order things” should become a harder rule.
It was a very small package. How could one shirt, much less two, fit? Being linen, they’d be wrinkled messes. Cultural appropriation karma: a dry cleaning bill preceding the pending shaming/spitting incident. One shirt at most. Let guilt build as I awaited the arrival of my second violation.
I opened. No shirt(s). A white envelope, familiar penmanship. Oh, yes. The keys to my place. Six weeks after my ex dumped me, I got them back. Giving them to him as I moved into this condo had been a big deal. I even took a picture at the time. (Not going to scroll back to find that now.) Getting them back is most definitely not a photo op.
Breakups are awkward. Dilemmas pop up. How badly do you want that hair dryer back? Or that pricey salon pomade? There’s that fun pair of Chuck Taylors but the soles were showing wear and tear, right? When the ex’s place is across town, it comes down to arranging a half hour some Saturday afternoon and asking that he not be there. No drama, which is in itself dramatic. He can’t even look at me?!
It's trickier when the breakup involves two people living in different cities, even different countries. In this instance, however, the property retrieval, like the breakup itself, was one-sided. I didn’t have shoes or hair product or even a bottle of Stumptown cold brew coffee that required a list of pros and cons about bothering to get them back. As much as the breakup TOTALLY SUCKED[1], it was convenient that my ex had just moved from Seattle to Denver and I’d cleared everything that was mine from his Seattle apartment. I’d figured I’d gradually add new objects to the Denver closet he kept saying he’d set aside for me. All his now.
But he’d still had a number of items in my Vancouver condo. I wasn’t quick to return them. It wasn’t that I was trying to be mean, holding his road bike or hiking boots hostage. For a while, I couldn’t face the task. Even in the best of times, I’m terrible about this kind of thing. I procrastinate. My self-doubt is a core personality trait. My reflex response to any such minor chore is that I won’t do it right. That expression, “he can’t find his way out of a wet paper bag”? It came from people who know me. Thanks, Mom. Thanks, Brian and Sue and Ali and that other ex and the ex before that. I automatically think I’ll buy the wrong sized box, the wrong kind of tape and maybe even make a transcription error in writing the street address. I’ll swear I sent the parcel, my ex will say nothing but tell all his friends I’m a vindictive liar and then eighteen months later he’ll pass a guy who lives three blocks away wearing his hiking boots. Same shoe size…uncanny.
But the first weeks of delay were about denial rather than doubt. That whole dumping drama was accidental. Low blood sugar. A wonky adjustment to Colorado’s higher altitudes. Too much reading about conspiracy theories and wrongfully concluding I was directly involved in the demise of Ricky Martin’s career. (As if “She Bangs” wasn’t the obvious undoing.) It feels more embarrassing with each passing week, but I honestly thought we’d get back together. Like Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello. (Bad example.) Like Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. (Another bad example.) Like Bert and Ernie. (Let’s just say they had a trial separation and the Sesame Street Workshop crew kicked into high gear keeping it under wraps. Just wait for Big Bird’s memoir, forthcoming 2026.)
Nope. The remorseful what-have-I-done call from my ex never came. No delivery of several dozen roses to take up all my counter space. Not even a text with a “Hey” and a smiley face emoji. Instead of shared bathtub adventures with Ernie and his rubber duckie, I was still a discard, my Muppet place coming closer to Oscar the Grouch’s abode.
I can’t explain why I couldn’t send everything all at once. Was it too many items of different sizes that overwhelmed me? Or was it the significance of sending off the parts of him I’d loved having in my home, the reminder of him while we were apart? I’m far too sentimental.
The first package was a shoebox. A piece of pottery was the main item. I used clothes and biking gloves to protect it from breaking. Smart packing, I thought. No wastage in buying bubble wrap or other packing materials. I worried about the pot. I had to prove I could do it right. It had to arrive unbroken. To minimize problems, I drove across the border and mailed it from Blaine, Washington so customs officials wouldn’t open up the box and then send it on with the pot less protected.
The little trip was a hassle. A chunk of my day lost, worsened by an uncomfortable exchange with an American border agent who said I wasn’t supposed to be transporting somebody else’s belongings across an international border. When I blurted, “It’s my ex’s stuff. He dumped me on Valentine’s Day,” Mr. Tough Guy took pity, waving me through with a verbal warning, a silver star of sorts awarded for being pathetic.
It didn’t even bother me that I had to highlight my rejection to a stranger in uniform. I’d already gone through a lot from how things ended. A good friend of mine, the epitome of Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky, was incensed with me. “Why are you doing anything? Why aren’t you chucking it all? You owe him nothing!”
I quoted Michelle Obama: “When they go low, we go high.” And, sure enough, as I walked out of that post office, first parcel out of my hands, I felt elated. He got rid of me; I had to unload what I still had of him. I was doing it right, but I was also helping myself, feeling power, relief and the tiniest bit of accomplishment.
I still needed a bigger box for bigger possessions plus a bike box for his road bike that had become a menacing reminder of a love lost, still propped against my fireplace as it had been for most of our relationship. The first box was easy. I bought one that turned out to be larger than needed and then searched for extra items to stuff in it. When it arrived, my ex reacted to the fact I’d included his half-used bar of soap. Like I’d been petty. It’s possible. But, really, if he knew me at all in our two years together, he’d know I don’t throw anything away. Not soap, not coffee grounds (compostable), not a relationship.
Oops, did I go low in that last sentence? Truth!
The bike box took more effort. I Googled it, came upon dead ends. The box store had nothing but sent me to a U-Haul center on the other side of Vancouver. Nothing there either. I finally came upon the bike box at the UPS store where I mailed the second box. (No driving back over the border to send things. No more dealing with customs officers. My level of care had dropped. It would get there or not.) The bike box wouldn’t fit into my Mini Cooper so I decided I’d return after Canada’s four-day long weekend for Easter, pack the box while in the store and be done with it.
Didn’t happen. As luck would have it, my ex’s best friend was in Vancouver for some sort of gay Easter parties which I had no clue about. He came by and we loaded the bike in the back of his SUV, Seattle-bound. If or how it gets to Denver is not my concern. I can see my fireplace again. (Admittedly, it looks underwhelming.)
And now the returning of possessions is complete. There’s still an oversized lamp of his in my living room that I have no use for. I never turn it on. It fills an empty space atop my hutch. It can stay for now. Tonight I’ll clear his things from the fridge and chuck the alcohol I will never drink from a cupboard by the sink. His new Denver home never had any trace of me. I walked in it, right after being dumped, and he weirdly gave me a tour that I had zero interest in and can’t explain any more than the breakup itself. So technically my presence was there for ten minutes, easily aired out by an open window.
Lamp excepted, his possessions are gone from my condo. The harder part is that the memories are everywhere. He was with me as we furnished much of the space. (It was much appreciated to have a designer’s input!) Maybe I’ll buy that green chair from a warehouse he took me to in Seattle. I loved it. “It’s fun!” I said.
“Furniture isn’t supposed to be fun,” he replied.
So he says. It’s time to define fun for myself again.
[1] I refrain from writing anything in all caps. It’s too Trumpian and, basically, too much. It’s a slippery slope from all caps to overusing exclamation marks and then—gasp—typing multiple exclamation marks in succession. By waiting two or three years since the last time I typed anything other than a title in all caps, it underscores how much the breakup, in fact, TOTALLY SUCKED. Click here if you want the backstory.
