First, I didn't actually remember the Passat when I made the quick list the other day of cars. But I do remember this dealership. We bought at least three other cars from them. It's been at least ten years since we've done business with them. My cell phone number was our old landline so I'm not surprised that is the phone number they had in their files. Obviously, the Passat is long gone, maybe even 15 cars long gone. So it's a bit funny that they would think we still had the car.
And it's a little ironic to be reminded of his birthday with an obsession of his that was his number one priority, something that I realized before we even married but managed to dismiss. There is a lot of emotions wrapped up in that one statement - a grown man who invested more in inanimate objects than his marriage and a woman who accepted that as enough when it would just drain her. I still feel some anger at both him and myself for that.
And of all the dealerships to have sent the text (and there were many!), this is the one I could describe to you in the most detail. I don't remember specifically which car we were buying that day but this is the dealership where I remember laying on the floor in excruciating pain as I willed the time to pass quickly to finish the deal and paperwork. It was late at night. I don't think we had eaten dinner yet. We were there after closing, although that wasn't actually all that uncommon - we did a lot of late night deals. And I remember finding that it hurt to sit and it hurt to stand and it even hurt to lay but if I stretched I could relieve just a little bit of the pain. My TENS unit and the medications I was taking weren't helping much that day. I can't even imagine how filthy that floor was but I just didn't have the energy to care.
Today, as I revisit this memory, my back and hip pain have flared up. Maybe it's because of the timing of the month - I sometimes feel a little pain as my period starts. But this feels worse than normal so I have to wonder if my body is also physically remembering this experience.
And what gets me is I think back to the first time I told someone about this memory. Actually twice, I remember telling the story. The first time was last year to a good friend and former colleague as I was trying to make sense of the end of my marriage. The second time was earlier this year to my therapist. I don't know exactly what brought up the memory each time but I remember telling it as if this was the most normal thing to happen and the eyes of the listener got a little bigger as the story went on. That's when I started to realize how many bad behaviors I had normalized.
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