Keys

Last week, I got a new-old car and for now, we’re getting to know each other. Every car has its quirks, this one being no exception; the only quirk so far that really bugs me is the ignition. Occasionally, it takes me several minutes to get the key in just the right position to actually crank up the car. I leave the door open so I don’t roast in the Southern humidity trapped in my car, and try desperately to pay close attention in the hopes of learning some way to make this time spent shorter in the near future.

My new-old car’s ignition reminds me very much of the key I had to my last boyfriend’s apartment. Despite having two keys made on two separate occasions at a quality place of business, I still had to wiggle and jiggle to get the key to actually open the door. When I first got the key, then-boyfriend told me that it would take some time but eventually, I would find the sweet spot between the key and the lock. For the most part, he was right. A few weeks later, the majority of the times I used the key I could accomplish the task in fifteen seconds or less. Still, though, not every time; there were still evenings where I would stand in front of the door, heavy laden with a backpack, groceries, a purse that could take down a grown man, and the exhaustion of an afternoon in Atlanta traffic, desperately trying to force the key to do my will, to just open the door. These times I would eventually simply give up and knock, standing there, irritated, cold, hot, tired, impatient, all because a tiny piece of metal simply wouldn’t do what it was made to do. I had had his key to my apartment cut at the same store; his fit perfectly, a smooth turn to unlock. The fact was, the key to his place wasn’t right; whether it wasn’t cut correctly or the door was odd or the metal was wrong or the key before cutting wasn’t proper, none of that mattered, simply that the key wasn’t right.

Forty-five days later, I realize that sometimes the key isn’t right. I could have stood at the door to the relationship and waited for the key to wiggle and jiggle and hope that I could force it, just right, into doing what it was “supposed” to do. I had done everything perfectly, a checklist. Nothing worked. The key, for whatever reason, didn’t fit; it didn’t mean the key was wrong or the lock was wrong. I could have been content to wiggle the key for as long as I needed to, but one day, I was told not to come over any more and I stopped using the key. I realized sometime after that day that a key and a lock should just fit and just do what they were made for. I could make arguments for myself being the key or the lock, but either way, we didn’t fit. On my new-old car, I could get the ignition replaced; there was no need to replace the lock since his key fit, and we had already replaced mine once. The key and the lock, it just… didn’t fit.

I am happy that I had the time to wiggle the key, to see if it was just me, but I’m not content to force it any longer. I’m still not sure what was missing between the key and the lock, but I know that it was. It should fit, turn, and open the door. The door should be open, to whatever, to the inside, to where I’ve been trying to get all along.