You were just a guest

I saw the in-between I wanted to stay in.

That accepting a future and doing things to better that future, meant I was letting go.

But letting go was not for me.

It was cleansing.

Cleansing a home we had built together, filled with dreams and hopes, mementos of our time, and realising that:

This home was here before he was.

So I picked up his shoes and that one white t-shirt that reeked of his cologne I still held to sleep and I took it to the bin.

I moved all his things into a safe little box.

I moved my space and organised it all, keeping only certain memories I wanted to keep tucked away in a filing cabinet in my heart.

And maybe that is how you find the perfect in-between between not wanting to forget them and starting a new life without them.

You cleanse.

You build new metaphorical cupboards, you re-arrange, you buy new furniture.

You paint the walls a colour they never liked, you learn to fix the sink – the thing they always did and you never learnt how to.

You will still come across things that were his or remind you of him, and you safely put these things in the closet of:

Things you have no use for anymore.

And one day, you come to realise that this home was always yours.

They were merely just a guest.

And so you light that sage stick and you cleanse your fucking space of their smell.