on finally letting go

I have been through two break-ups. Which pretty much means I've had my heart broken twice, and for the same reason at that. But for some reason, I was a believer of "maybe someday we can be friends." And even worse, I was a believer of "someday I'll tell my grandkids about you and the happy memories we had".

So I had the remnants of failed relationships sitting inside my cabinet, kept in their respective boxes-- an old Nokia box that held Ex #1's first gift to me, and a normal box covered in nice wrapping paper that help Ex #2's first gift to me. I had never really understood what all the fuss was about burning everything that reminds you of him and all that. I thought that it was enough for them to be out of sight, out of mind. Hence the boxes and the unopened cabinet that held them.

Here I am in Relationship Number 3. And out of nowhere, I thought of those two boxes and realized, "What the hell am I doing still hanging on to those?" Will I really pull my children unto my lap, dig up these boxes, and read to them old love letters that professed a love that ultimately died? Would I really pick up a candy wrapper and recount some story about how this was the first candy bar an Ex --a man not their father-- gave me eons ago?

It was stupid. And I finally saw the light.

And for the first time, my wonderful boyfriend supported my desire to own a piece of office equipment that other people don't normally want to have: a paper shredder. In his words, "Now, that's the best use for a paper shredder."

I found a dirt-cheap paper shredder at CD-R King: while shredders normally cost at least P2,000, I was able to get this one for P999. Looooove. It sat in my room and waited until I had enough time to open that closet and deal with the ghosts of the past once and for all.

"Once and for all" came this afternoon. I plugged in the shredder, opened the Box from Ex #1, took all the letters, and fed them into the shredder one by one. As I fed them into the shredder, I didn't even pause to read them. A few words caught my eye, terms of endearment I don't ever want to hear again, and everything just made me shudder. Particularly for Ex #1, I realized that all that was so ten years ago! And I was hanging on to these things from ten years ago! At first I thought of saving the pictures, but when I realized that I was cringing at the sight of them, into the shredder they went. Now the Box from Ex #1 is practically empty, save for my prom invite, his prom invite (which were pretty nice), earrings and a necklace. At least those are things I can decide on later.

Box from Ex #2 was almost the same story but not quite. I realized that most of the things in there were receipts, with notes on what we did on those dates. Gawd. How pathetic. Did I really think I was going to pick up a receipt and tell my kids, "Oh kids, I went out with this guy --not your dad-- to eat at this place for the first time. And look, we spent only P199.75 for two complete meals!" It wasn't going to happen, so I chucked all those receipts into the big black garbage bag. Then I fed all the letters into the shredder one by one, without reading them. I knew it was going to hurt if I read them because I had hoped Ex #2 would be The One. Coming from your first heartbreak, you always hope that the next one will be The One. And the way things ended, with the protracted emotional rollercoaster ride, only made things worse. Bad as it sounds, but it seems it will take a very long time before the happy memories with Ex #2 resurface, as only the pain remains for now.

Which brings me to this: why did I want to hang on to all these hurtful memories all these years? Why did I hang on to letters from a better time, when I knew that those professions of love were just words that didn't go anywhere? When I knew how the story had already ended? As I fed all the letters and pictures into the shredder, I realized that you don't need tangible things to remind you of the good times. If they were good times, they'll just stay with you, untarnished. They will always have the power to make you smile and say, "Yeah, the story didn't end well, but that was still a sweet thing to do/a really good day/a happy memory." And that's that. Happy memories have a way of being immortalized in your mind.

Maybe that's why in my current relationship, I haven't been stocking up any memorabilia. I don't have receipts from dates, I don't have handwritten notes on an exchange of text messages, I don't have love letters and pressed roses. But I do have a lot of memories, like a Valentines dinner spent in the office and still managed to be romantic, the look on his face when he first saw me in a dress, the time we went swimming together for his birthday, and a lot of smaller things that just pop up randomly in my head, making me smile out of the blue. And the tangible stuff that I do have always have a story: the grumpy Care Bear that will remind me on bad days that there's always someone else in a worse mood, the little red devil that was born out of an inside joke, the earrings he bought me after I lost the exact same pair, and the ring I wear every day that reminds me how I am loved.

And when you realize just how much love you really have in your life, it becomes so much easier to let go of all the things that were so ten years ago.