JUXTAPOSITION

jux·ta·po·si·tion

  [juhk-stuh-puh-zish-uhn] –noun

1.

an act or instance of placing close together or side by side,esp. for comparison or contrast.

2.

the state of being close together or side by side.

It's a cold, drizzly weekday night.  The two of us are at Academy, looking at mens clothes.  It sounded so fun, the idea of trolling around Academy looking for items on clearance.  Once we got to our intended section, though, it seemed a little awkward to me.  I slipped off to the women's room, my mind still rolling over some of the conversation topics from dinner, things that make me think, things that make us laugh, things we will end up bringing up later in other conversations.  Seems like some of these things we have been talking about since the beginning of talking, things like the differences between men and women, the problems with both, the value in both.  

Here I am wondering if some of what we talked about should have me being concerned, and somehow it makes me feel self conscious.  I'm thinking about other women again, other women from the past of every man from my past.  I'm kind of in this weird place in my head when I make it back to where he is browsing for shirts.  He is having trouble deciding, and asks me, "which of these would you rather see me in?"  It is such an odd question to me, this idea of a woman picking out his clothes, that it makes me wonder about those who came before me.  Which one of them trained that in him?

"I'm not that kind of girl," I smile at him, but then send him off to try on a few agreed on choices nonetheless.  While he is gone, I let my eyes wander around the shirts, playing this game, pretending, if I WAS that kind of girl, which of these clothes would I see him in?

My eyes keep falling on some sweaters that I am innately drawn to.  I wander over to look at them more closely, and realize they were not his type.  They would have looked great on my exhusband, though.  This would have been something I would have bought for him.  And I smile ironically at my head-self, admonishing myself for thinking I was so different than her, or them, when on the inside we are all the same.

Done with our errand, we leave to meet up with my ex to retrieve the kids from their visitation with him.  J pulls into the parking lot nose to tail with my ex's Jeep, so close that the doors can't both open at the same time.  My ex has to stand there in the drizzle while I load the little one into his car seat.  He is questioning me, acting as if he is concerned that J might be a threat to the safety and well being of those he cares about. which is just so funny and frustrating all at the same time, being that now for the first time we are all protected and cared for by someone who has our well being as a top priority, the way he never did.  He was a bit the snarly dragon that this hero rescued us all from, in fact, but seems to be doing a little projecting of his own bad reflection.

Earlier, we had been on the way to drop the kids off with him when he had texted me, told me what he was making them for dinner.  I was a little surprised, being that he was making one of my favorite things in the whole world, and when I showed up, he invited me in to see.  It turned out to be just a sleigh of hand, a trick if you will, but we kind of laughed about it like old friends.  In the back of my mind, though, I am still simmering angrily over a dream I woke from this morning, a dream blending the places and faces of our shared past with some recent unsettling elements he has brought unbiddingly into my life.

Later, I am standing in the hallway listening to the children settling in for the night.  My eyes take in little silver shapes in the dark hallway.  I run my fingers over them, these left-behind nails, places where pictures used to hang, pictures from the previous life that was being lived out inside these walls.
Now the kids are asleep in bed and we are getting there ourselves, J and I.  We are snuggled up impractically tight, talking over the events of the night, laughing under our breaths at all the foolishness in and around us.  Side to side, hip to hip, knee on knee, sole of foot running across tops of other, the remarkable oneness of intimate beings.  The murmurs of our voices rise and fall here in the dark, where the shadows of the past fail to find us, because right now we are someplace they can't get in.