What's Mine is Mine

Although I don’t recognize my hands, I certainly recognize the things they were putting on the counter at the thrift store. I watch as chipped nails, originally a clean sky blue, slowly lay out my past in front of me.

The first was the holey band t-shirt. It was clearly once black, but faded with washes, sunlight, and age. My father had given it to me when his beer belly could no longer be contained by its cotton midsection. There were holes in the shoulders and faded stains under the armpits and when I wear it and work up a sweat, dad’s smell works its way out of the fabric; the smell of aged spice fills the air. I can remember listening to an old CD of that band in dad’s old truck as we drove around town. Track two had been played so many times that the CD had worn down and it would always skip, but it would do so in the same place, and dad and I would giggle as we would work the skipping into the song as if it was part of the lyrics. “Why, skip Oh, skip Why can’t this be skip?” we would sing as the smell of freshly cut hay and cow manure pushed its way into the windows. I wore that shirt to my very first concert. Not the band on the shirt, of course. Dad had told me, “Annabelle, you never wear the shirt of the band you’re seeing, that’s bad form. You wear the shirt of another band like them, to let the other people at the concert know you’re a rock and roll badass, and not just a one pump chump-fan.” So as I listened to a song about a girl who “got a gun,” I was thinking about a very similar girl “crying.” At that concert, dad put me on his shoulders and I was free.

I met my boyfriend, David, about ten months ago. He is moving in next week, and I could not be more excited. It was his idea, but I think that moving in together will really strengthen our relationship. Before he moves in, though, I have to make some space for him, and he’s become dedicated to helping me organize my life. Trying to get me to find what “sparks joy,” and moving in a direction that leads me to my “ideal lifestyle.” So that’s why I’m getting rid of all this stuff. “Clutter,” as David called it. I was on the fence about the shirt, but he said that since I only wore it around my apartment that I wouldn’t need it because I have plenty of other shirts. He’s right, of course. It just feels so odd to be getting rid of this shirt.

Oh, “my” college sweater. Not the college I went to, though. My mom bought this one for me on a college tour when I was in high school. We took a road trip up the east coast and I had severely underpacked. Who knew that New England could be so cold in the fall? We were outside and I was shaking and mom made the tour guide stop by the gift shop. At the time, I was mortified. But that hoodie kept me comfortable and warm throughout the rest of our trip, at least four or five more colleges. I can’t really remember. What I do remember: taking turns driving with mom up and down Interstate 95, wiping cheese powder from our road trip snackage on the hoodie and singing at the top of our lungs. As I place it on the counter, I can see how reliable it was. The gray has never faded and it is still as thick as it was on the day mom bought it for me. I wore that sweatshirt all through college, the one I did wind up going to. It was soft and warm, and more comfortable than anything I found in my actual college shop. All of my friends gave me crap for sporting the wrong school’s colors, so I actually stopped wearing it out, but I’ll admit, homesickness was a real thing for me then. So when I was in my dorm, late at night, unable to sleep, I’d put it on and curl up in the fetal position. That sweatshirt made me feel safe.

I had met David on a dating app. I was about to give up on dating in the city all together. Maybe even move home and try my luck there. My job had been stressing me out and I needed a change. And the day I had resolved to delete the app, there was David in my inbox. He was well spoken, organized, and polite. We only exchanged a few messages and he asked me on a date. From there, we were together a lot. David was always finding ways to visit me at work, or planning fancy dinners for us. He’s very sweet. He makes it a point to always be available. Sometimes, I even feel bad when I’m too tired to see him. That’s why he suggested moving in together, and yeah, it makes sense. I told him about this sweater when he yanked it out of my closet, but he said that I had him to make me feel safe and warm now, that it was too thick in the closet and taking up too much room. It makes sense.

Aw, my cast shirt. I did a play in college. I honestly think I was pretty good. A bunch of the other students were all theater majors but I just auditioned because I was bored. I’d recently broken up with my college boyfriend. (I was out at a bar with some girlfriends and I saw him there with another girl. I didn’t say anything then because I was devastated but that night when I asked him what he had done that day, he said he stayed in his dorm room all day playing video games. I dumped him on the spot. I didn’t even tell him why. Dad would be proud, I was no chump.) When I was cast in the play, I was so excited! I wasn’t the lead or anything, but I had a lot of lines and I got to slap another girl on stage. The college newspaper even said that I was “cute and personable,” and that I gave a “genuine performance.” At the cast party, when the play was over, the director gave us all shirts, and I had everyone in the cast sign mine. I was going to get it framed, or turned into a blanket or something, but it must have fallen to the bottom of my drawer. I always meant to audition for more things, but I guess I just got sidetracked. I started dating someone else soon thereafter. 

David is back in school. He’s determined to become a lawyer, and he’s currently doing an internship for a law firm through a program at his school. He says that when he’s a lawyer, I won’t have to work anymore. Which I guess would be neat, you know, having a lot of time to myself. He’s about to graduate soon and he thinks the firm will hire him right after the internship is over. I have been thinking about what I would do with all that time. To be honest, it’s why I went digging in my drawers to find that shirt. I thought of auditioning for the local theater. It’s only fifteen minutes away and they have a bunch of shows that they put on over the summer. When David saw the shirt though, he must have thought I meant to donate it too. He put it in my “To Go” pile. I told him about the show in college and that I was thinking about maybe auditioning again; he got a little grumpy. He said I was too pretty to be on stage, I’d probably “be cast as a girl who has to kiss other guys,” and he said he didn’t want to share me. I understand how that would make him uncomfortable. It makes sense. But still, I would love to be able to see if I was still about to give that “genuine performance.” 

I place a few more things on the counter, taking a moment for each one, reflecting on each memory, smells of low tides and ocean breezes, songs of miraculous birds, the feel of sand in my pants. But as I watch my hands place the last object on the counter, I don’t think I am breathing. It wasn’t a piece of clothing but a piece of jewelry. A necklace that my first crush had given me. His name was Greg. It wasn’t expensive or anything. And it isn’t fancy. The jewel is some kind of blue stone and the chain is made out of beads. And I haven’t even worn it in a long time, but I never took it off the little metal tree that my jewelry hangs on. Greg is married now; he lives in the city, and has four kids. We’re friends on social media and we catch up every now and then. There is no romance. It’s not even a big deal, I’m happy for him and his life. But that necklace is sweet. It was the first thing that a boy ever bought for me. And he did it because he paid attention. We had gone to see a movie and we were walking around after and we walked by a closed shop. You know the kind of shop. The kind where you can get flip flops, candy, jewelry, stickers, and mustard. There was that necklace in the window, and I was looking at it and I said how pretty it was. Well, the next weeked, he took me on a picnic, and gave me that very same necklace! It was so sweet, and I never forgot that picnic. When I see this necklace on the branch of my little jewelry tree, I smile. I feel noticed, appreciated.

David knows that story. He asked me about the necklace the first time he slept over, actually. He asked why I had such a tacky necklace. I told him the story. The next day he showed up at my job with this really pretty, shiny thing and said I deserved prettier jewels. I wouldn’t ever tell him, but I really like Greg’s necklace better. David can be a little possessive. I think it would hurt his feelings.

If I’m being really honest, I don’t think I want to give any of these things away. I love these things.

“Oh my god! I saw this band!” I look up and the scruffy looking newcomer at the counter is holding up my concert shirt. “Did you see them in concert?”

I blush. Who knows how long he has been watching me stare at my things. He probably thinks I’m an absolute weirdo. “No,” I say, “but I saw a few other bands around that time.”

“Badass,” he says as he starts sifting through my former life on the counter.

“Oh man, did you go here? I wanted to, and applied, but I didn’t get in,” he says as he finds “my” college hoodie. This guy’s hair is a little too long, he’d probably look better if he got a haircut.

I feel my blush spreading down into my neck. I giggle nervously, “I didn’t actually. I just have the hoodie, it’s a long story.” He looks both confused and interested, but doesn’t stop rifling through my life. “I’d just like to donate this stuff-” I start to say. It’s a little too much, someone else finding out how neat my things are. Would he take them himself? I didn’t want someone else to have them.

“Wait a second,” he stops manhandling things that mean the world to me. “What college did you go to?”

“Just local, State,” I say, wishing he would stop touching everything and just let me leave.

“Yes! I saw this show! Like three or four years ago, right? You were in this show? No way!” He’s looking at me. He’s squinting. I can’t help but hold eye contact, I feel like he’s really looking at me. He’s got these big blue eyes. I’m now wishing he’d go back to looking at my things. “Hey, I definitely think I remember you, you were really good.”

“Look, I’d just like to–” Why am I still here? I had put the stuff on the counter, I don’t need to stick around. I just feel like I shouldn’t leave my things here. This guy is probably going to take them for himself. They don’t belong to him.

“Oh my god!” he chortles as if he has milk in his nose. “This necklace is so ugly!”

“Excuse me?” I say. That’s it. I’m taking my things and going. And this guy can go straight to–

“You can’t give this stuff up! It’s incredible!”

“Oh,” I don’t really know what to say. This man wants me to keep my things.

“Like, these things are really dope. But like dope for you. No one is gonna want a shirt that is signed by people they don’t know. And this band shirt? No offense, but it kinda smells,” he says with this big, goofy grin as he puts my scattered memories back into one pile. I guess that he’s not not attractive. “But, like these things are clearly sentimental.” He has this odd way of stressing words or parts of words to make them seem important, when they’re just silly words.

I ignore the comment about the shirt smelling and I watch my hands, much more familiar, automatically start putting the clothes back into the big brown bag I had brought them in. “Thanks, I think you’re right,” I say.

“I’m Grant, by the way,” he says, catching me off guard.

“Annabelle,” is all I say.

“This might be wild, but I would love to hear about that show you were in. I really liked it, and the more I look at you, the more I remember you. You were, like, really good.” He hesitates and helps me put the last few things in the bag. “Would you want to grab a cup of coffee? My treat.”

Before I answer, I reach back into the back, familiar hands digging through my warmest memories. I find it, and pull it out. Before I decide what I’m going to say, I clasp that gorgeous string of tacky blue rocks around my neck.