All We Still Have

And the value of recognizing what's left

First, the thermos went missing.

For two years I took it everywhere. Kept it wedged between my thighs on my mid-morning commute to the Financial District in downtown Manhattan, nestled it in the cupholder between Casino and me on our cross-country drive to Texas. Every week I towed it to Manhattanville, my neighborhood cafe, where every week Brendan dutifully rinsed it out before refilling it with coffee because oops I forgot to clean it again; I even threw it in my carry-on when I flew to Denver last summer, though I don’t think I used it once. It was less function, more sentiment. The thermos was a gift from my ex, Alex.

Last Friday I got home from Queens ragged from a 14hr day of teaching, grading papers, and writing. I pulled out the stacks of notebooks, my binder, then dug to the bottom for the thermos, and realized, with mild panic, that it wasn’t there. I checked my duffle bag, my tote, the car. But it was gone.

I’ve lost a lot over the years. My aunt’s ring, my favorite jeans, a million single mittens. No less than 20 capos. As a touring musician, I got good at leaving things behind. Once I was halfway to Chicago before I realized I’d left my vihuela in the green room in Louisville, 3 hours away, and had to doubleback through the night, making it to the West Loop just a few minutes before soundcheck. But oftentimes, going back costed more ground than it was worth. I had the next gig to get to, I couldn’t spare the time or gas money. I learned to accept my losses and move on.

Eventually, I got good at leaving people, too. Living on the road for 7 months of the year, you’re lucky to frequent the same city twice. Even then, you may only stay for a night, with only a sliver of an hour to cram in a catch-up over pizza after soundcheck, your eye always on the clock. Instead, I learned to tour with musicians I enjoyed spending my time with, people who lived like me, became like family. But even that had it’s own drawbacks. We’d spend weeks-long stretches together, in close quarters, traveling the lengths of each other’s lives on overnight drives. Then we’d split ways, maybe to different towns, and prepare to do it all over again with a different cast of stand-ins. Sure, we’d had fun. But at the end of the day, it was business. 

It’s a thermos, I thought, repacking my backpack. It’s just a thing. 

Two years prior, Alex had special-ordered it for me. I was in the process of leaving my fiancé and re-entering the dating scene, dating women again for the first time in years.

How the hell am I supposed to signal I’m queer? I’d complained to them. And then, one weekend I went to the farm where they lived with our other partner, and Alex handed me a small cardboard box. In it was the thermos, a white, 16oz mug with a discreet but tasteful rainbow drawn across the center. It was perfect.

Around a year later, for longer, more complicated and painful reasons, we decided not to be partners, and I split with their partner, too. Though both relationships were unconventional in many ways, I extricated myself in the traditional ways I’d removed myself from my previous exes’ lives. I picked up my clothes from the farm, took the requisite space. We remained in each others lives, though our relationship evolved into something different. Our conversations shifted from the emotional arc of our days to the creative—like me, Alex is also a writer. So we texted about writing. Writing seemed safe.

And as months passed, they found other people, new community in their town. I sought out people in Harlem. I even went through a cleanse; tore through my entire apartment and threw away every piece of memorabilia I still had from an ex.

Still, I kept the mug. Also, the thrift store wallet they gave me.

A few days after I lost the thermos, I stopped in Long Island City to meet my friend Catherine for lunch. It was a crisp 65 degrees that day, and afterward, I sat by the East River and looked out at the sunshine reflecting on the water. I rustled through my bag, removed my wallet and phone, and then took a picture to post online.

“Is that in LIC? I used to live right there!” Alex commented on my post. How had I never known this about them? 

I sat for an hour or two, too tired and worn down to make it to my last class for the night. Instead, I read for a little while, I wrote. Then I made the tired drive home.

I got home, unpacked my keys, books, my computer, my wa—and then I realized that my wallet was missing.

My friend Catherine rode her bike to the waterfront, recruited strangers to search for it under their cell phone flashlights, but it was no use.

The wallet was gone, so was my thermos. 

All well enough, I thought. I’ve been meaning to get a nicer wallet anyway. Maybe it wasn’t a coincidence that I’d lost them both. Maybe the universe was also syphoning off my final daily reminders of the life we’d had. 

I pulled up Amazon and diplomatically dropped a new thermos and wallet into my shopping cart. But as my cursor hovered over the “Order” button, I hesitated. I checked my Chase bank account—no recent purchases on either of my cards. The wallet had been found, but not used. Maybe someone was trying to get it to me?

My ex-fiancé used to say I was most prone to lose stuff when I was tired. Your body is telling you to slow down and listen, he’d warn. 

He was right. I was overworked, but I also had not been paying attention. And sitting on my couch, staring at that Amazon cart, I felt a pang of loss. Something in me had changed. I was not as debonair as I used to be. About leaving things behind, but also keeping people at a distance. Maybe I never was debonair to begin with. Maybe that was the whole point.  

Because here was the humbling truth: I missed Alex, and I missed sharing more than our writing. And I didn’t quite know how to say that to them, or negotiate the places inside of myself where I still sensed there was hurt. So I’d just continued driving. I withdrew, and like water, watched while the shape of their life that once held room for me was filled by other people.

Pema Chodron once wrote that the universe uses pain to wake us up. Like we’re just going about our day, lost in thought, and then Bam! We stub our toe the coffee table, and that pain brings us right back into the present moment. What if loss works this way, too? What if it takes losing to remember the value of all that’s left?

It’s scary admit how much some things matter. And for those of us who lost people—especially early, especially young—it’s frightening to think about how much people matter to us, too. But the alternative, Chodron might argue, is to remain asleep. 

For now, I haven’t replaced the mug. I have this quiet confidence that the wallet will make its way back to me. Even if it doesn’t, I know that I have some conversations ahead. What about you? 

With care,
Aly 

PS. Alex’s debut memoir about polyamory, about love, and yes—a good bit about our relationship, too—is up for pre-order today. Alex is the person who I go to when I need to reconnect with my most honest self, and I care deeply about this book being out in the world (I also edited it). If you enjoy my writing, you’ll love theirs. Support their work and pre-order Entwined today.