Last of the Bile, Promise
Posted by Moose on March 24th, 2009. Filed under: Adventures.Something about retching up the contents of my empty gut into the nearest toilet bowl has me thinking about purging. (Know what comes up during the unholy union of nausea and an empty stomach? Water and bile, that’s what. You’re welcome.)
Last week marked two anniversaries: 1) Laura’s daughter Peggy turned a year old, and 2) My first official year of being single ended. The coincidence of the two – and Laura’s visit – eased some of the guilt I’d been carrying around over never sending them a card when Peggy was born. There were a lot of things that didn’t get done that month. Laura couldn’t have cared less, by the way. Apparently new parents use all their available brain cells trying not to inadvertently damage their infant offspring while also staying upright and conscious. “Honey, we have no idea who sent us what,” she told me when I apologized.
Laura celebrated the first year of her daughter’s life, and I spent the anniversary of my breakup, to the day – to the hour, even – hurling bile into my poor, abused commode. Something I never do. Ever. Whether there’s a conclusion to be drawn from that, I don’t know. I just know that coincidences are far less entertaining than hashing out grand conspiracies invented by my gallbladder.
So purging has been a bit of a theme around here. Last night I cleaned house, scrubbing chicken soup remnants out of my sauce pans and whisking away any errant bits of glass before another stray lodges in my foot. (What with the flu, the fatigue, the bloody nose, and the shard of glass still in the foot, I wouldn’t be surprised if I woke up with leprosy tomorrow morning.) I’m even planning to tackle the photos on the hard-drive. Because you know what I still haven’t done? This. I wrote that, what, eleven months ago? And still have yet to pull up all the old vacation photos and random Sundays on the deck and put one copy on a disc to be stored in a box and one copy handed over to the tender ministrations of the U.S. postal service.
I’ve been procrastinating, and no mistake. After being read the riot act by someone who once waited a decade, an entire decade, for an ex to send vacation pictures from a trip to Morocco, I offered up some lame excuse. “He probably doesn’t even want them any more.” I don’t remember if that garnered a response or a withering look, but either way, the message was clear: “That’s just stupid.”
And, of course, it is.
Purging is good. My gallbladder needed the exercise and my apartment certainly needed the wholesale scrubbing, what with the glass shards, the ginger ale empties, and the fine dusting of plague. Maybe I’ll even tackle my closet. Pawing through my old prom dresses and jeans that fit five years and seven pounds ago is surely less painful than splitting up with a partner or feeling the fiery slide of liquid headed the wrong way up your throat.
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March 24th, 2009 at 9:30 am
Despite my crippling fear of vomit, I love this post, because purging is great. Good luck handling the photos and whatnot—I’m sure you’ll feel better afterwards
March 24th, 2009 at 9:53 am
Oh goodness darling, I certainly hope the bile/vomitness is over for good.
Kudos to you for purging, I’m in the midst of an office clean-up–complete with giant dumpsters and chilled beverages from Corporate–and I feel like I need to carry that over to my house. (Notice how I’m skipping the part about purging relationships? Yeah, it’s a conscience choice to ignore that right now. I’d rather focus on my closet.)
xox
March 24th, 2009 at 10:28 am
My ex still hasn’t sent me the “old vacation photos” cd and it’s been two years!…but I kinda don’t even want them anymore, honestly. They’d only make me sad, not about him, but about how damn skinny I was or how perfect my hair looked. Except for that one trip to Portland when I had a huge growth on my lip that had to be surgically removed…those photos can burn in hell.
March 24th, 2009 at 10:37 am
We spent all this last weekend purging our apartment of clutter and dirt and old pots and pans that we had burnt so many times so as to render them mostly unusable, mostly on accident, but the amazing feeling I get now when I look around at our much simpler living space? So worth the bruises on my hands and knees and maybe even my elbows, too.
(Also: I’m glad you’re feeling (mostly!) better, friend.)
March 24th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
We’ve started the spring purge over here – it feels GOOD.
March 24th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
The post to which you link was the first post I ever read on your blog. I had no idea it has almost been a year of you writing followed by me reading.
Hope you are feeling better.
March 24th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
This post reminds me of that time I had food poisoning. YAY!
March 24th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
I did the apartment purge two weeks ago and it feels lovely. Hell, I even found a random $71 in a box!
I hope you feel better soon.
March 25th, 2009 at 8:36 am
Marking these anniversaries is a good thing.
There are times when we think we cannot move forward another step. And it is VERY reassuring to take time, farther down the road, to turn around and see how far we’ve actually come. Give yourself a hug and a pat on the back. You are doing very, very well (vomit and bile evidence to the contrary).
Chris (in VA)
March 25th, 2009 at 11:06 am
I’m totally cleaning out stuff right now. That and planning a 30% off sale of every piece of artwork I have ever created and have in stock in May. I don’t care if I end up giving 50% off in the end, I-need-to-purge. I just gave away the baby jogger, seeing my kids are now 6 and 8…as well as shoes and stuff from the 80s. It feels good. I also threw away some pictures of old boyfriend. Much needed. Make full room for new boyfriend.
You know, in your case, once you make room….you never know…
March 25th, 2009 at 11:15 am
um, i’m glad you’re doing the good kind of purging…but i hope that bad kind has stopped. i don’t know if MY stomach can take any more!
March 25th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Glad to here the gross purging is over and the more sanitary kind has begun. Just think what you can do with all the freed up computer and mind space!
March 25th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
That’s “Glad to hear…” obviously. Shesh.
March 25th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
On the first year anniversary of my worst breakup I got VERY VERY ILL out of nowhere. The next anniversary, nothing. Now I don’t even remember the date. HANG IN THERE! It will get better, I promise!
March 31st, 2009 at 2:20 am
I barfed last week too. I didn’t make it to the toilet bowl, I barfed all over myself and the jetty of our tiny island in the Maldives. And when I could manage to kneel down, I barfed into the Indian Ocean. It is actually quite hysterical how fast the fish flock to eat up the bile diluted remnants of the big mama cheeseburger.
Apparently, I get seasick. (Though I was absolutely fine on the boat out the next day!)