Cleaning Up by Douglas S Johnson …and now, before we end, and so begin, we’ll drink a toast to how it's been… — Billy Joel   My in-laws' house is a mess. Now, I don't mean there are a few newspapers strewn about the floor. I mean it's a holy, unmitigated mess. A swamp of old yellow data sheets, used oil filters, and broken sawhorses has taken over the rec ("wreck"?) room; bits of wire coil serpentine in the corners and on the kitchen table; quarter-full cans of gasoline and bug spray fill the pantry; and the rusty framework of a single-engine airplane my wife's father once started to build takes up the garage so that all cars must reside in the street. The backyard is less than lovingly known as "Tetanus Park." It is a living homage to the inability to throw anything out. Doing away with that which is no longer good or useful, and which, in fact, may have become dangerous or harmful, is sometimes hard for us. We are slaves to habit; we turn a blind eye to the detritus, the scraps of cloth and shards of bone our lives have become, just so long as we do not have to make a radical change; we grow comfortable even with our accustomed discomfort. I know about this. I have recently ended my relationship with my best friend of 16 years. The reasons why are unimportant; let it suffice to say that it was a mutual decision, lots of blame here, lots of blame there. In the end, I guess there was just nothing more to keep us together, too much to drive us apart, and we had pretended otherwise for too long. In fact, our emotional life together had begun to look like my in-laws' house. It was time to clean it out, burn it down, something… In the end, there was trauma, howling, chaos. There were woundings, bitter accusations, lashings out that will leave lasting scars. It was all symptomatic of a long knowing, an unspoken understanding that things were not right between us and that they never would be again. We clung desperately to one another, trying to fill the roles of mother, father, lover, counselor, all in vain. The Arabic poet Gibran said that the tree whose limbs are not trimmed must lose them in the storm. This was the last thing we learned together. No doubt we waited too long; perhaps the storm could have been averted. But how? Who was this person named Kim? I met her in college. Even then, I often thought she was a snob, a society sellout. She often thought I was self-righteous, a snarling religious freak. Over the years, we loved each other like few people ever manage. Because of geographic distances, I can count the days that we actually spent in each other's company. We have probably given a million dollars to AT&T and spent nearly as much in postage. She was my best literary critic, my confidante, my emotional home for many years. One of the most poignant memories I have of her was when we were sitting in the student union at Missouri Southern State College talking about the meaning of life. "You have to make your own meaning," she told me. She was an idealist, though she would deny it. In April of 1996, The New Times printed my essay "Friendship." Many say that it is the best thing I have ever written, and it was dedicated to Kim and everything our relationship meant to me. This is who she was. Who she is now, I don't know. I haven't known for some time. I, too, have grown a stranger to her, despite constant, and as I said before, somewhat desperate contact. All I have left are the things she returned: these stacks of old manuscripts and memories to sort through, some to keep, some to throw away. I used to wonder what a divorce felt like. Now I know. As with a divorce, we went through all the stages of a breakup. Her specialty was sentimentality. Mine was anger. At one point near the end, feeling unspeakably betrayed, I screamed at my once best friend, "I won't give you a warm and fuzzy ending! I want you to hurt! I won't let us have an easy out this time!" You see, some time ago, we fell apart under similar circumstances, and I romanticized it, still regarding her as someone I needed to live and pining for her, and I suspect that this romanticizing probably led to our reunion. I'm not pining this time, but to be honest, I'm regretting slamming the door quite so hard on her. Perhaps with this, with these final words I'll pen for her, I will leave a crack between the door and the jamb, just enough for the sunshine to get through. To be even more truthful, I must say that I will more than likely never cross the threshold of my relationship with Kim ever again, but at least I will know that if she doesn't turn the lock on her side, there's always a place I can go. No, not I, we; there’s a place where we can meet. Human relationships are often a mystery to me. The Buddhists say that they are forever finite and painful and to be shunned along with the physical world. Some say that any true love is forever: my father's parents were married for almost seventy years and plan to meet in heaven. I guess there are as many views on relationships as there are ways to pair up all the people in the world. All I know is that sometimes they end without our knowing why or what we will do afterward. I've tried to make sense of it: the sacrifice of one for the many. (Ironically, I've discovered how many friends I have due to the loss of this one.) "All good things must end." "He who hesitates is lost." "Make me no promises, so you never tell me a lie." I cannot sum up the loss of 16 years in an epigram. I must continue to sort through this pile of writing, letters, and memorabilia and take what little I am able to salvage emotionally into my next close relationship. Yes, I fully expect another person to come into my life. I wrote at the end of "Friendship" that there is always someone for everyone, and I still believe it, despite all. I will go on. I cannot love anticipating love’s end any more than I can live life in constant fear of death. As I make new relationships, filling up the void, I must remember this. I suppose at last that it is no more difficult for me to believe in an afterlife than it is to believe in this one; likewise, I know that, as before, I will find the love of friendship again and that some other waits, even now, for me. Thus, I live on.