New Worries

We have an attic in this house. It’s a cute one. Perfect for crawling onto and exploring. I guess little kids can walk upright in there as well. As I settled into bed the other night, I gestured towards the attic and said “Our grandkids won’t find anything interesting up there”. Mr.Gabby looked up from behind his monitor from his little niche in the corner of the bedroom and went “What?”

About 5 or 6 years ago, when Mr.Gabby (or then boyfriend-Gabby) and I had just become something of an item, I was moving apartments. He and his friends were busy loading the truck downstairs and I was cramming in the last few odds and ends into boxes. I reached up to the top of my closet and the huge yellow plastic zipped-up envelope I retrieved stared at me, silently challenging me to make a decision. It bulged with every old love-letter I had ever received along with all-things-romantic that had transpired in Gabby’s life so far. Yes, even those cute Valentine Day’s cards that one finds stuffed in school bags and cycle-carriers, slipped in when you’re not looking. It was filled with some things that would make you go “Aww” and some others that were not so aww-worthy but definitely stirring to me. Those kinds of things that make you pause and stop what you’re doing and just wonder. If only for a short while, you wonder how these people are, how they’re doing and what they're doing and then you shut that little mental envelope and go on with your business. I unzipped the bag slowly and as I did so one not-so-pleasant memory surfaced and I instinctively figured out the best thing to do. I walked over to the corner of the kitchen that housed the growing garbage pile and tossed it in. “Fresh beginnings” I murmured to myself as I taped up the last box.

“There won’t be any pile of letters tied up with a silk ribbon smelling of lilac or lemon verbena..” (Or in my case, now that I think about it, a curious mixture of Estee Lauder’s Pleasures and Indian spices)
“Not even a shoe-box with some mementoes!”...“I threw them all away!”
I had Mr.Gabby’s undivided attention by now as I continued to crib.
“A little kid won’t clamber down the stairs red-faced and breathless clutching handwritten love letters!!!”....
“And you won’t get to chuckle and say “Ah, your Granny was quite a firecracker in her day” or something cute like that!!!”
“NOTHING!!!”

Mr.Gabby stared at me, disbelief wrought on his face. I knew this wasn’t a big deal to him but I was hoping he would understand my frustration a tad bit at least. He walked over and in some corner of my head I wondered about the commonsense of lamenting old-boyfriend keepsakes to my present love-interest, however honest the current relationship! He sat down on the edge of the bed and said “You threw it all out?” “Yes” I said. “Were there addresses on the envelopes?” I suddenly saw where this was going. “You guys had already taken the shredder to the new place!” I cried out, hoping he wouldn’t ask me why I hadn’t torn the address portions by hand.

A helpful note: Mr.Gabby takes Identity theft Very Seriously. As it is a matter that needs to be Taken Very Seriously. We have an industrial size shredder and several smaller ones too. The industrial size one can even gobble up a CD and crunch it up into several small pieces in 2 seconds flat. It makes a resounding racket while doing so that can quite grate your nerves. In general, all shredding makes a din but we should just grin and bear it, as Identity Theft needs to be Taken Very Seriously.

“Oh well” he said walking back to his desk. I could see that the emotional weight of the issue might have made my action excusable but disappointment was still at large. He resumed typing and I resumed reading. Suddenly he asked “Were there photographs too?” I nodded glumly. “Of you as well?” More glum nodding. “Not quite the lilac-smelling experience but our grandkid might still turn red-faced and breathless, if those pictures some day make it to the internet” he said. I looked up to see him grinning helplessly. As I threw a pillow in protest and screamed that they definitely weren’t those kinds of photographs, I also thought of how the internet might well be the most interesting attic in the future. God knows what shit they’ll dig up about us...all the more reason to keep this blog shit-free. Oops.