Your Blue Is Not My Blue: A Missing Person Memoir by Aspen Matis

Author:Aspen Matis [Matis, Aspen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-05-31T22:00:00+00:00

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1The protagonist of East of Eden, who believes he is evil but desperately wants to be good. He prays to God: Make me good.

18

A LINE OF SMALL BLACK DOTS

Without drinking, I was a lone sailor, looking in a mirrored café wall. I felt panic and energetic strength, my heart tender as if sunburned. I was now the captain, forced to experience directly the state of sky and water, the weather now mine to confront. Sitting in the neighborhood of my marriage’s desolation, three days sober, I felt every storm and current I’d used alcohol to numb.

Now, instead of trying to forget it all, I had come to this espresso bar to capture memories to which I now had access. Typing, clear-eyed and exposed, I felt renewed confidence—this time I was going to meet my deadline, hell or high water.

Sitting on a red stool, I wrote the story of my first miles walking with Justin in remote mountains, when he offered me his best food, impossibly generous. I conjured my handsome bearded stranger giving me mac and cheese under fierce stars; my grand dreams that emerged in our first nights up late talking; our whispers of skiing cold mountains, gliding down the powder together—him promising to someday visit me in Colorado when it still felt like hot air. Recreating his sweet behavior through these stories was a very specific sort of psychological torture, the last thing I wanted to do—especially so raw.

Justin didn’t like to see me drunk beyond coherence, he said it “dims your light,” and I considered that my stopping might make him happy. Experiencing more, I also remembered how I missed him, the pain of his loss throbbing as I typed.

Reaching a section of our story that felt uncomfortable—our first intimacy—I unconsciously drifted over to Facebook. Justin’s page had no new posts, none since he left. My newsfeed was filled with engagement announcements and infants, couples I knew elliptically beginning adventures of partnership, too often kissing.

Before I knew it, an hour had elapsed click-clicking half-strangers’ photos, aimless. Exhaling, exasperated with myself, my lack of discipline, I closed an album of newborn twin boys lying on a blanket in the grass. Freed of alcohol, I was not making swifter progress but rather just unthinkingly embracing another distraction.

In the clarity of new sobriety, empowered to reclaim control of my days, to use my time with stern intention, I decided to deactivate my Facebook account. Locating the button, the site asked me to confirm my action; and I clicked Yes.

The next screen that appeared was one I hadn’t seen in months: the pale blue and white sign-in page—there was still an account listed. But it wasn’t mine; it was “Justin Matis.”

In the open space of Password there was a row of little black dots. It seemed his log-in information was still saved in my computer. My chest fluttered—I pressed Return.

To my joy, my amazement, my computer logged me in to my husband’s profile.

I clicked through his private messages, excited—until I realized he hadn’t sent or even responded to one of them in several months.

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