Sucking Air.

It was easy to miss at first. And then one day it happened. And then it happened again. And again. Again and again and again. Staring at the proof scattered across the floor like little snowflakes, I can’t hide from it anymore. After all we’ve been through, it’s leaving me.

My Dyson is dying.

It doesn’t seem possible. It looks the same as the day we brought it home, its canary yellow drum bursting with pride as it out-sucked the competition. But just like women whose taut exteriors are simply well-crafted storefronts concealing clutter, cobwebs and decay, its eternally sunny demeanor cannot hide the simple fact that my beloved Dyson is failing. Most women dream about dust-and-hair-free baseboards. Not me. My two cherubs leave a trail of tiny slivers of popcorn, cracker and fruit snacks on the carpet, under the couch and between the cushions.

Baseboards be damned. All I want is a couch that doesn’t snap, crackle or pop.

But the couch has now been ousted as the next “replacement,” an unexpected departure that I’m neither ready for nor am I equipped to deal with. After all, it’s not as though another Dyson is waiting to step … er, roll … onto the carpet.

Just like there wasn’t an extra bed. Pool motor, fire alarm, television projector lamp, fridge filter, toaster oven, beta fish, laptop, car, phone, garbage disposal or dog. And there was no backup plan to address cleaning toilets and taking out the garbage following his premature and unapproved departure.

It’s as though the house and everything in it started to fall apart the moment he was no longer an active participant in it. And the breakage has continued unabated ever since. Some relatively minor and others undeniably major, each is an unwelcome distraction that is as mentally draining as it is financially. Each one a reminder that the life we had built would never work exactly the way we had envisioned.

They are, for the most part, simply objects. Tangible elements of the lives that we all build, proof of our achievements and the building blocks that surround our partnerships in in life. A broken pool motor simply means that a green ecosystem enjoys a brief jaunt before being chemically doused. A fire alarm is a trip to the store and then one from a fancy red truck. A television lamp is a week’s worth of childish anger and better time spent together.

But it is the Dyson that has me melancholy. It was a simple purchase, made when we closed one door and opened a larger one to the future. Proof that our dreams were becoming reality. Moving slowly over the carpet and listening to the weakening hum that is both the passing of strength and time, I find myself drifting back to a time when a buying a vacuum cleaner meant so much more. And then I remember. 

This time I can get one in purple.