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Checkbooks
by Jill Mullins
One of the hardest adjustments is looking for my checkbook alone
I have chronically misplaced that thing since I opened my first account at sixteen
I could tear my room apart and reorganize it, and never find my checkbook on my own
Then she would descend from her room upstairs and find it
Often sitting in plain view, the sole item on the top of a bookshelf or logically placed in the desk hutch
Now we're grown and we're separated by a little more than a flight of stairs
It's been almost two years since we lived together last
Slowly I'm learning to adjust
And not just to finding my checkbook alone
But to the loss of daily interactions
My laughter searches for other ways to escape without her humor
Even when she made me the angriest, she could make me laugh, which is an infuriating quality
Mornings are quieter without her
She no longer jumps in my bed on her way back from the bathroom, chatting about nothing till consciousness forces us to start the day
Life is just generally quieter
No more battles about whether to watch sports or drama
No more harassment to run errands
We no longer chauffeur each other around in our shared car
An outsider might think losing some of these things would be a blessing
But I don't
I know that she is my balance
The parts of me that would have existed to fill the half she completed so perfectly sit on the border of atrophy
I tell myself separation is good, I need to develop that half of me
Slowly I'll learn to keep my checkbook in the same place and to remember where that place is
I'll learn to ignore the space created by her absence and settle for frequent phone calls and less frequent visits
And no matter what, if I can't find my checkbook all it takes is a phone call and a three-minute drive and she'll find in plain view
Jill Mullins is a writer whose primary outlets include her Out Loud column and
spokenword poetry. She straddles the fence between prose and poetry and takes
pleasure in the confusion.
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