No, Eminem...not that one. I'm talking about my actual closet. Fall has always been my favorite season and I'm the first to admit I shop heavy, folks. By the time the air actually becomes chilly enough to wear all the cute snugglies and boots I've stockpiled, I've run out of room to store them in any organized fashion. So I go through my drawers and closet with a ruthless eye and make room.
It used to be my all too forgiving eye and Cory sitting cross-legged in the obscene pile of clothes on my bed, declaring firmly "Ummm, no! Just no!" or holding up an item I hadn't worn for seven years, and challenging me with one perfectly waggled eyebrow, "Mom, is this really who you want to be?"
That girl. My world is so much less without her in it.
So tonight I made a halfhearted attempt to start going through my drawers and happened upon a cashmere sweater I'd bought at least twelve years ago. I'd gotten the brown and the teal. When Cory, all of fourteen or maybe almost fifteen began clamoring beside me, I caved and bought her the heather gray hooded one.
All these years later, and here I sat crying over an old cashmere sweater for no reason other than Cory is dead. The teal one had not only began to pill, but there was a hole I'd not yet noticed. It is no long wearable. I have way too many sweaters. This should not have bothered me SO much. And yet...
Like some horrid six degrees of separation game gone awry, nearly every strong emotion I have comes back to that foundation: Cory is dead.
It never stops shaking me to my absolute core, acceptance or not.
My closet isn't in nearly as good of shape without her. I have sweaters with holes in them for Pete's sake. There may be vests from fifteen years ago in the back. You see what state I'm in without you?
And most of all, she is not here to offer her opinion, her commentary, to squirrel away items and sneak them upstairs to re-home in her own closet. She and I aren't able to jump up and try something on just to see if it looks as ridiculous as we think it might and then giggle over the results.
She is not here.
