After the divorce, I kept a bunch of my stuff in boxes, for a long time. Boxes that I didn’t really feel like opening.
You find that you can get along fine without a lot of things you thought you couldn’t live without. Like for example, your partner. But also, a bunch of stuff in unopened boxes, mostly kept in the spare bedroom, but also, here and there. Wherever there’s room for a few boxes. In the corner of the kitchen that you don’t use anymore, for instance, because you’re living on peanut butter sandwiches.
But eventually, you get curious about what might be in the boxes.
I didn’t expect to find the little package of Yogi tea tucked into a box full of my old t-shirts. My first thought was, “I bet Darlene stashed this package in here, just to make me think of her.” She used to drink a lot of ‘Sweet Tangerine Positive Energy’ tea when we were together, and she was constantly trying to get me to drink it, too.
“Wouldn’t you like some positive energy?” she would ask me, sipping on her big mug of tea.
And I immediately got into a bad mood, unless I was already in one.
Was she trying to say that I was in need of positive energy? That I was a negative person? And that she, sitting there on the porch drinking Sweet Tangerine Positive Energy, was somehow superior to me, because she held the crazy belief that a cup of tea could make a person more “positive”?
Typically, I would respond with something like, “Only negative people need to drink that kind of tea. I’m naturally positive, thank you.”
Which wasn’t exactly a positive response, of course. In fact, it was pretty negative.
And Darlene would sip her tea and smile at me, not saying anything. So I would have to keep the conversation going, all by myself.
“I said, I’m naturally positive, thank you.” I find if you say the same thing twice, even if it’s an outright lie, it feels more true each time you repeat it. You can say it three times, if you want.
“I’m naturally positive.”
Darlene would just smile. Sipping her tea.
“So, no, thank you. But thanks for asking. I don’t need any ‘positive energy’ tea made by some yoga-loving hippies in Oregon, because I’m naturally positive. And you can just sit there and smile and not say anything.”
As you can tell, I am trying to push Darlene’s buttons, but it’s not working. I had let my buttons get pushed, and I wanted to give her a dose of her own medicine. But she was dosing herself with Positive Energy, and there was nothing I could do about it.
So that’s why I’m thinking that Darlene hid this package of Yogi tea in my box of old t-shirts. She knew I would open the box someday, and find the Yogi tea, and get my buttons pushed all over again. Long distance. She wouldn’t even have to be in the same town.
My first inclination was to throw the package in the trash can.
But that would be a victory for Darlene. Proof that she had been able to push my buttons without even being here.
So just to show her, I opened the package and brewed myself a cup. And you know, it was pretty good.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.