for several days, one or two weeks ago, i did what we all do often: went for groceries and restocked my fridge.
i did not buy one single item that i had ever bought since i moved to this apartment – most of what i got, in fact, i had forgotten even existed. now, they were all i had at home for the next meals: goat cheese, jamon iberico, two types of tomatoes, arugula, mozzarella, asparagus, italian bread, wine and two juicy steaks. i could even find that spanish sausage we are not supposed to find anywhere.
(no, this was not a new weird – and delicious, imo – diet.)
just days before, i got the news that some guest had stolen a few items from my são paulo apartment, the most important of them being a – very fancy – bottle of veuve clicquot.
that kind of champagne is damn expensive, of course, but that was not the reason of the pain in my gut when i first heard about it. that very bottle was part of a christmas/new years gift i got, the very last one, from my ex.
we never had the chance, though, to open it up and celebrate as we did every single time we got reunited. he postponed the occasion, then started to act weird, then slept with his ex – but that i didn’t know – and finally we broke it off.
i kept the bottle in the fridge.
pretty much half of everything i had in that apartment was packed and shipped here, to my new city, but i just couldn’t move that. i couldn’t put it in a box, or even touch it, for that matter. in july i met a great guy and started fantasising about the night i would finally feel like pouring it for us.
i dumped the guy (and got a friend).
the last time i went to são paulo, i saw the damn bottle there, almost confronting me. it was already six months since the (last) breakup happened and i was moving from the anger and pride to longing and just pure grief. the sight of it hurt me more than ever.
and now it’s gone.
that same weekend, a few other things followed: i started feeling down, and worse, every passing day. i emailed my ex, telling him that i missed him (which i NEVER did for all those months). by the time i got home, i was in an emotional shit hole. and i had to do groceries.
for the next days all i ate was all we ate together. it tasted like us. like the very best of us. like dim lights and music and meals on the sofa at 1am.
no, it wasn’t painful at all. yes, i let my memories get in. somehow it did help. especially because i ate so much of all that that i can’t even look at it now.
and for the bottle, well, maybe that was the best ending to that effing ordeal. maybe popping it and drinking that thing would always be loaded with too much emotional heaviness.
this morning the doorman called me up, a package had just come in for me. a gold and pink box, a bit on the heavy side, and a i’m sorry note. the guests, those very guests, decided to refund what they took: a brand new bottle. it carried no memories, it had no meaning.
it was just a champagne bottle.
