Apparently Your Ex Now Lives in the Cereal Aisle

After a breakup, your ex develops an astonishing ability to be in places he has absolutely no business being.

He is in the supermarket, although thankfully not in person. A song starts playing quietly over the speakers while you are choosing shampoo and there he is again. Somehow he has also become involved with a particular brand of crackers, one road near your house and a blue sweater being worn by a complete stranger who has never met him and would probably be alarmed to learn that she has become part of the situation.

You can be having a perfectly pleasant Wednesday when your brain suddenly presses a button.

Him.

Excuse me?

You were buying toothpaste.

After a breakup, ordinary life seems to sprout invisible little switches everywhere, and nobody has had the courtesy to tell you where they are.

Suddenly, Everything Has a Button

At first, the obvious reminders make perfect sense. Your song comes on and of course you think of him; you drive past the restaurant where you had your first date and, fair enough, your mind wanders back there for a moment. Even finding one of his T-shirts at the back of a drawer and staring at it as though the cotton itself has requested a conversation feels reasonably predictable.

It is when the mustard gets involved that things become less reasonable.

You see the mustard he liked.

Him.

A man in front of you orders sparkling water with lime.

Him.

Someone says, “We’ll figure it out,” in approximately the same tone your ex once used while discussing a broken dishwasher.

HIM.

By now, your brain seems to be getting rather carried away with its new button collection.

The strangest part is that the object itself may have almost nothing to do with the relationship. Maybe he bought that cereal twice. Maybe you once shared a bag of those chips on the way to somewhere else. Maybe he merely stood near a lamp while an important conversation happened.

Congratulations to the lamp. It now has a role.

Before the breakup, it was furniture.

Now it has history.

The Important Memories Are Not Always the Ones That Get You

Which is especially unfair, because you would think the grand romantic moments would be the dangerous ones.

The hotel where you celebrated an anniversary. The beach where he told you he loved you. The beautiful restaurant where you sat by the window and believed everything was going exactly where you hoped it would.

And sometimes they are.

But heartbreak has eccentric taste.

You can pass the anniversary restaurant six weeks later, glance through the window and feel surprisingly fine. Very grown-up. Very composed. Look at you, strolling past the scene of emotional history as though you have places to be.

Then you go home, open a kitchen drawer and find the ridiculous little bottle opener he always used.

Oh.

For heaven’s sake.

Apparently this is where we live now.

It is almost insulting how random the reminders can be. A whole romantic weekend in Prague may leave you reasonably intact, while somebody wearing the same aftershave in a pharmacy can send your mind galloping backward before you have even found the vitamins.

Your brain is not curating a tasteful retrospective. It is rummaging through a box.

Here is his favorite mug.

Here is a joke he made once.

Here is that street.

Here is a sandwich.

Would you like to feel something about the sandwich?

No?

Too late.

Then One Day, a Button Does Absolutely Nothing

And then, with absolutely no announcement, one of the buttons simply stops working.

The song comes on again, and of course you recognize it. For months, those opening notes could drag an entire relationship into the room before the chorus, but this time you simply keep doing whatever you were doing. You might even catch yourself singing along.

A few days later, you pass the restaurant and remember, rather pleasantly, that the soup was excellent. Then one afternoon you see the cereal.

Just cereal.

At first, this feels almost suspicious. Shouldn’t something happen? Wasn’t there usually a small emotional weather event around aisle seven? Apparently not. The box is just sitting there behaving like cardboard, which is all it ever wanted.

The funny thing is that none of these things has changed. The song sounds exactly as it did before, the street still turns left where it always did, and the ridiculous bottle opener is, thankfully, still ridiculous.

They just seem to lose their talent for summoning him.

Some reminders take their time, while others seem to lose their grip when you are not looking. You rarely notice the exact moment it happens. Yesterday the button worked. Today you are simply standing there holding cereal.

Your ex has moved out of the cereal aisle. The lamp is just a lamp again, and somewhere in the kitchen, an innocent sandwich has finally been released from its emotional responsibilities.

The cereal, the song, the restaurant, the bottle opener — none of them changed.

You did.