Haunted Thrift

I now have a job at a local thrift store; I started only one day before my untimely breakup, so for the first week of my job I went through the numb motions of learning the register and how to stock the floor. Fortunately for me, operating a thrift store can be done as easily as walking backwards over a flat surface. Junk pours in and out, the same people come in and shop, and the store's creed can be recited by rote with ease.

After several days I started to come more to life and notice the world around me.

I've always had an interesting time with antique and secondhand stores. Sometimes, when I touch or brush an object I get a strong emotional reaction. Some people call this phenomenon psychometry and think it belongs to the "realm of the supernatural.*" I, however, think it belongs to the realm of the preternatural, meaning that "we don't have a scientific explanation for it yet, but someday we will.*" I also get feelings from just being in a place or in close proximity to the object.

At the store I feel little more than the wash of emotions and activities of the living. However, sometimes when it is quiet or there is a low volume of people in the store the building speaks to me.

Sometimes I feel an acute loss of sunlight, a missing of dusty fields and anthills, of grasses blowing in the wind. This is what I would call a first layer of impression, there from a time before Laramie itself existed. After this is an impression of clanking iron, the dusty smell of horses, and the coarse shout of men calling to one another. I don't know what first existed in that spot, but I get the idea that there was a stable or a depot nearby. Indeed, the modern-day train yard is within viewing distance of the shop.

The third layer of impression I feel is that of music, centered in the shop itself. I know the thrift store is not the first business on the location, so perhaps it was a music shop at one time. The final layer is that of the thrift store itself, again with the myriad impressions of thousands of different things coming from hundreds of different origins.

However, there is something lucid that moves throughout the store, I believe, felt not only on the sales floor, but upstairs among the maze of boxes, donations, and empty clothing racks. Several of the employees there do not feel comfortable in the store by themselves or after dark; indeed, D. and J.2 have both said that they didn't feel alone when they closed for the night or opened in the morning. I myself feel that something is either watching or listening to me when I walk upstairs or back into the electronics and books area. Nothing bad, just watchful, curious, and maybe even a little annoyed.

Four days ago I knelt next to a shelf of books near closing time, the store quiet save for a few last-minute shoppers and J., our manager, talking with J.2 by the register. As I straightened the books, looking down at a lower shelf, someone brushed by me out of the electronics room, which is low-ceilinged and closed in, rather like a cave. I felt the pressure of this person's passing, and the rush of wind against my cheek and temple. I glanced sideways, seeing in my half-view a slender slip of a man walking quickly toward the front of the store, shoulders hunched, wearing dark clothes, perhaps charcoal gray. Thinking it was a customer that needed help, I patted the last book into place and turned to get up, hoping to intercept the man before he made it all the way to the register to ask for assistance, saving him a few feet.

As I turned I realized that the man was no longer there and could not have disappeared from view in the amount of time that it took me to turn. J. and J.2 still spoke by the register. The door to the upstairs was closed and had not opened. I stood there blinking for a moment, thinking that perhaps J. had walked by, for he is slender and tall, but he himself was leaning against the counter, completely at ease and still.

Quietly, I made a quick circuit of the store. The last few customers had already left, and no one was nearby. I didn't say anything and just went back to the books.

*From The Haunting, 1963

Dealing

I am coping with mine and Jeff's breakup, and though it is a little better every day I am not going to write about it online anymore, unless I have another insight to add. I wrote about it mainly to let all those whom I know and care about what happened, and now the rest of the emotional bruising I will deal with on my own.

I also wanted to let people know about the symptoms of emotional and verbal abuse, as I'd never experienced them before and felt that it was important for people to understand.

Once again, Jeff is an amazing person who was simply not truthful with himself and not truthful with me. I hope that he realizes how he needs to improve and how we could have worked together on our relationship if communication and faith had been the norm.

Henceforth, I will only write about this type of abuse in general, as I learn more about it and as I speak to counselors to help me through this "exiting" of a relationship.

Thank you all for your support and insights. They have helped me immensely in this difficult time, and I want my friends and family to know how very much you all mean to me. I hope that I can return the favor with love and insights for you all one day, albeit in happier circumstances!

Thank you again.

Strange Jump

The last time I wrote here I was full of anticipation of moving to Laramie, Wyoming, to start my new life with Jeff and our dogs, Shelby and Dally. After living together for a month, Jeff proposed. Happily, I accepted. We set a date for July 3rd, reasoning that if we felt solid enough, why not make it official?

If things had gone to plan we would be in Estes Park tonight, readying for the most joyous day tomorrow at 4 o' clock.

Jeff broke up with me on June 22nd, on our way down to Estes to pick out the wedding locataion.

The day started badly, with our dogs being attacked by a loose boxer while Jeff took them on their morning run. On the way down, a person in an SUV started riding our bumper, flipping us the bird though we were going just above the speed limit. Jeff became more and more angry, so I tried to turn attention to the wedding, something positive to focus on. He started to fume, asking why we were having a wedding in Colorado at all, when I said I didn't like the front range because of the traffic. I replied because he wanted one, and therefore, we would have one.

He became eerily quiet for a moment, and then asked if I wanted one. "No," I replied, "not unless you want one. Weddings for me are not important--"

Before I could finish my thought that weddings are not important to me unless they are important to the people involved, and therefore ours was sacred, Jeff exploded with temper. He said that we were "not on the same page," his voice rising to a scream as he pounded at the steering wheel with his closed fist. I shrank in my seat, confused, frightened, and shaking with terror while the dogs cowered in the back seat.

"Okay, okay," I said, my voice a high, thin thread of panic. "I'll learn to like weddings for you Jeff, all weddings. If that's what you need I will learn to like them."

I knew I was babbling because I was trying to say anything that would placate him at that time. I was terrified of being hit. I was terrified of this new, sudden Jeff that shredded the man I knew. I was bewildered because our wedding not being important never even entered my mind, and I didn't get why he, a cultural iconoclast, thought weddings in general as being so important. In my mind I was clear, but in the moment I was in great fear.

He broke off our engagement then, and still has not spoken to me, beyond telling me I needed to get out of the trailer. I had one week, and he'd be back, and I better be gone. This was a repeat of last November, but this time I had nowhere to flee. I needed to be out in a week, or my things would be out on the lawn and Shelby and I would be homeless.

Thankfully, God sent Levy and Julia, my friends from Shoshone Lodge, whom I had come to think of as brother and sister the summer before, when I was a housekeeper there. Levy was the cook and Julia was a waitress. They have a good apartment in West Laramie, where Shelby and I can stay. I have a good little room overlooking a field of swaying grasses, and a view of the ribbon of sunset. There are dirt roads amd a large park to the west.

Looking back, I knew in some sense that this was coming. In the time after he proposed there were only two days where he looked happy and content. After that he would not return my smiles, just "Hm," if I looked at him with love.

In retrospect, I know he was looking for a way out, instead of telling me how he felt. It was common.

So, in less than a week my life as I knew it has changed. I saw the man whom I already thought of as "husband" leave me. I saw the future children in my mind's eye and heart disappear. I lost a family that I loved, a niece and a sister-in-law. I lost Dally. I lost almost everything save for my friends and my family.

Thank you all for your help and offers of help. Just knowing you were there helped keep my heart together.