There's a clock sitting above my TV. It has caught my eye tonight, as it has many nights.
I love antiques. I spend a lot of time antiquing. There is an energy, an aura around an antique, no matter what it is, that I've always been drawn to.
It was Sunday, August 30, 2015. I had been on the hunt for a 1940-50 fan for a while. Hopefully in working order. I live in a very old farm house, almost 200 years old. Anything too modern doesn't seem to fit, and I've been looking for an old fan that will circulate some air conditioning throughout the bottom floor. I told my husband I was heading to the antique mall to browse.
He said he wanted to go. I was taken aback, he never wants to go. I think he enjoys my decorating, but doesn't quite care where I shop to pull it all together. I was grinning when we walked out to the car. It would be just us. This is extremely rare, we never do this.
I had a blast at the mall. Browsing through 100's of booths stocked full of the past, it's my thing. In one, I was admiring an old camera, and as I placed it back on the shelf, this old broken Big Ben clock caught my eye. It didn't wind up, and the glass was cracked. I didn't care, I wanted it. Sometimes I wonder if some of the items I simply must have were possibly in this old house at one time.
I showed him the clock, and he even agreed it was pretty cool, even though cracked. He held up an old cast iron pan and asked me if I wanted it. I had, at the time, just started cooking in them. The older the better, they are amazing to cook with. I was smiling ear to ear as we checked out, and I was kind of feeling silly as I hugged my old pan and broken clock and tucked them safely away in the truck. He asked if I wanted lunch. Yes! We never do this.
He held my hand as we drove to the restaurant, and he held my hand on the way in. What was going on? I didn't know, and I didn't care. I was having the best time with him. Our conversation didn't even involve the kids. We just talked. We researched the age of the pan, and looked for the age of the clock. We found it, it was created sometime between 1928-1935. It was going to be a very cool shelf piece.
We had a nice lunch, and when we got home we spent the rest of the afternoon wrapped up in each other and really enjoying each other.
I put the clock right above my TV. I could see it whenever I was in the living room.
That Thursday, Sept. 3rd, he took me to a movie. We saw a movie that was from a book we both loved. It was amazing, really. We hadn't gone to a movie in a very long time. This was so nice. It was unusual, and welcomed. It was needed.
September 10th, he started his affair.
I found out about them on September 20th.
That clock haunted me every time I looked at it. All through October, as we hashed it out and tore the marriage apart, I would catch a glimpse of that clock and it was like a punch to the gut. November rolled around, and as I prepared to cook what I thought would be our last Thanksgiving as a family. There that clock sat... almost taunting me with memories of that rare day we spent together.
How could he go to another woman? How could he give me such an amazing day, and then go to another woman days later? I thought we were reconnecting, seeing that we needed to spend some time together, starting to enjoy moments together that didn't involve the kids.
December started, and we had a morning in the house to ourselves. I was going to get him to talk. We had torn me, the marriage and the past 20 years to shreds. Most, if not all, the blame falling onto me. Though, at this time, he was still holding onto convincing me that he was not with her, or talking to her, that it ended before it started on Sept. 20th.... he told me that morning that he wanted to be with her. That he had never felt that way about someone in his life.
That he loved me, but wanted to be with her. Wanted to see where it would go, if she was the one that he was supposed to be with.
I couldn't breathe that morning. My world was spinning out of control. He wants to be with someone that he's not even talking to? (God I was stupid). In my hyperventilating mess, I saw that clock sitting there... I didn't even think. I picked it up, opened the door and sent it flying into a tree. I stepped back in and closed the door.
Two days later, I went out and picked it up. The glass was broken now, the side dented. I felt bad. I felt good. I was a mess. I put it back up on the shelf above the TV.
He saw it, "What the hell? Why put it back?" "Because I want to." "But it's broken." "So am I."
It stayed there. Moved only for cleaning. I was careful of the glass. It stayed there. It no longer taunted me of good memories, instead it seemed to comfort me.
13 months later, after Dday, after an ocean of tears has been cried, a million words said to each other, a thousand fights and make-ups... it stayed there. There was something comforting about the shattered glass, the dented side... why, I don't know. But it stayed there.
13 months later, he and I were again browsing through an antique mall, when he spotted another one. Same clock. But in beautiful condition. It was clean, it worked like it was brand new. The sound of it ticking away was comforting. It was beautiful. He bought it without a word to me.
It came home, and was placed where the broken clock sat. I moved the broken one to a shelf not really seen, in a room we don't use that often.
I can see it now. Sitting there. Its whole. It works. It's in amazing condition. I can wind it up now and listen to it tick away the minutes. It's a beautiful old clock.
He knew what that old one meant to me. He saw my excitement the day he bought it for me. He knew I loved it, cracked and all. He thought I was insane when I sent it flying into a tree. (I was). I think he thought it would make up for it when he bought the new one.
There is so much symbolism in those two clocks.
I strangely miss the old one. Why. Why do I miss that one? Why do I stop when I enter that room and just stare at that old one? I miss it.
I miss it. I'm much more drawn to that broken, sad clock.
I may have had too much wine tonight.
just wow...I could feel the emotion behind this post. And I get it, I get why you love that old clock, I would too. I got teary last night when I read this. That old clock was broken but you weren't then. It was a antique treasure you discovered together. Genuinely nice that he tried to make it to you up by buying that new clock. But had he not had the affair, he wouldn't have to be making things up to you. And that's what sucks about infidelity. They keep trying to make it up to us, when they just shouldn't have done it in the first place. Keep that old clock...
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