The Wall

I hate how nostalgia can feel holy and violent at the same time. You find an old object. A magnet from a trip. A keychain. A note. Some random relic that would mean nothing to anyone else. And suddenly there she is again, not literally, but close enough to make your chest tighten. There’s a sweetness to it. A proof. A thread. Something in me lights up because she touched this, chose this, laughed at this, carried this. And at the exact same time, the pain arrives because the object is doing all the work now. The relic remains because the person doesn’t. I treasure those things. I also resent needing them. Some days I feel like my life is one long archaeological dig through the ruins of an ordinary marriage.