Ghosted

Ghosted

People are always complaining that they’ve been ghosted. 

Yet, I don’t know anyone else whose fiancé died right before their wedding. 

Really rather rude of him, actually. 

I spent a long time planning it. 

Jumped right over the “till” and straight to the “death do us part.”

He didn’t even clear off his nightstand first. 

Left a lot of junk around the house for me to pick up. 

I once asked him what it felt like to be in love and he said, “Putting someone else’s needs before your own and it not feeling like a chore.” 

Ironically, for me, being in love sometimes feels like I have double the chores. 

But, there’s no one else’s garbage I’d rather clean up… except for maybe anyone willing to pay me to pick up their trash. 

People are always whining that they’ve been ghosted. 

But not one of them had to plan a funeral at their own wedding venue. 

The downside is we were never legally married. 

And the bright side, those debt collectors can go fuck themselves. 

Despite the circumstances, I still consider myself widowed. 

The funny thing about being a widowed Scorpio is that now everyone I have ever dated is either dead or dead to me. 

And the hilarious part about being a widowed Scorpio is that you can have a lot of fun with people who say dumb things like, “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.” 

To which, the appropriate response is, “Seems like god gives some people more cancer than they can handle.” 

People are always griping that they’ve been ghosted. 

But, when I visit their homes, I never see any shrines. 

As if I didn’t have enough of my own shit, now I’ve got another person’s crap everywhere. 

Most of it, I don’t want. And yet, I feel guilty getting rid of it.  

Several of the sweatpants are very comfy, but why are there so many cables and chargers and things that seemingly belong to something else but the something else is nowhere to be found? 

Some boxes go in the garage. Other items get donated. And his coffee mug, glasses, baseball cap, keys, wedding ring, and a tiny apothecary jar containing a lock of his hair that the nurse gave me all get placed around a hexagonal box containing his ashes set on an altar, which will invoke a variety of responses spanning from empathy to concern to visible discomfort. 

“Gone, but not forgotten,” some will say. 

“Oh, no. He’s not gone,” I have to tell them. “He’s watching.” 

People are always protesting that they’ve been ghosted. 

But, like, are the lights in their house even flickering every time they talk about dating again?

He rarely ever called me by my name. It was always “Boo.” 

Now, I feel like he was just practicing for the afterlife. 

He used to tell me I was confident to a fault. 

I don’t care how he meant it; I took it as a compliment. 

That might be exactly what he was trying to tell me… 

People are always grumbling that they’ve been ghosted. 

But I never hear about any of them pulling out the Ouija board and asking their ghoster to please provide some sort of hint as to where they left their motorcycle keys because it really needs to be moved out of the car park. 

People who have not been ghosted will try so hard to say the right thing that they inevitably say the absolute wrong thing. 

“Maybe that was the best part of your life, but there is still more for you.” 

Oh great, the best part is over? What’s left? More stress and sadness? I didn’t want to kill myself, but now that option doesn’t seem off the table… 

Well-intentioned people also like to tell you that time heals all things. 

I think the extent of those people’s injuries are paper cuts. 

Because some wounds seem to close up, but then you open a box full of board games and find a candy wrapper that, god only knows why, was stuffed in there years ago by your dead partner and you erupt into the strangest combination of laughter and tears. Amused by the discovery of his garbage, left for you to clean up, the wound gushes and throbs. 

People are always complaining that they’ve been ghosted. 

But, you know, maybe they’ve never considered it might be better to be ghosted than haunted.