The Ex Box

Last night my sister was doing a little pre-Summer cleaning. She cleared out all the spaces that have been occupied by old boxes of high school text books and VHS tapes long forgotten. She called me in every once in awhile to give me some of my old possessions that somehow wound up in one of her boxes. A couple of old books, journals, and movies were among the goodies that I took to my bedroom eager to look through. One of the books was called The Female Brain. I remember reading it in my senior year of high school, but I never finished for some reason. Anyway, I opened the book to page one, and a letter fell out. After reading a few lines, it didn't take me long to realize it was a love letter that Ex had written me while we were at our best.

The note was typed in Word, single spaced, a page and a half long. In it he poured his heart out to me. He wrote about how much he loved me, how he could never live without me, how he wanted to marry me. I have no doubt that he meant these things at the time he wrote the letter, but I couldn't help but feel like these words were not his. He and I have changed so much since we were 17 (yes, I know that was only a few years ago lol) that we're hardly recognizable...Reading his letter was surprisingly emotional for me. Seeing his loving words took me back to how I used to feel about him, and I sort of feel for him now deep down. Before I knew it I was crying. Thinking about what went wrong, how he hurt me, how I hurt him, what we could've both done differently, etc. The crybaby fest only lasted a few minutes, because that was as long as I'd allow it to.

Afterwards, I folded the letter up and placed it in my box of mementos. Tucked it in with all the diaries I've had and birthday cards, and other miscellaneous things I've received since I was 8 or 9 years old. Of course this prompted me to rummage through my old keepsake box, as I do every six months or so. In it I found home made gifts, teddy bears, love notes, pictures, and cards from my exs. As I looked at each piece of memorabilia, I couldn't help but wonder, was it a bad idea for me to keep all of these things that reminded me of my exs?

Some people have different ways of dealing with break ups. Some get rid of everything that reminded them of that person. Music, emails, pictures, texts. Some even rearrange their furniture so that they can forget what it was like to cohabitate with that person. But me, I've never been that type. Sometimes it sickens me how sentimental I can be. I've never been the type to do the You Don't Exist To Me sort of thing, but maybe I should. I mean, it's not like I look through this box every day, reminiscing and whining about how things didn't work out. But at the same time, does it really do me any good to keep them? I don't know.

I'm still debating whether or not I'll get rid of my Ex Box, but I'm just curious what you guys do. When you end a relationship, is it the end of that person as you knew them? Or do you hold on to the things that remind you of the good times you had with them?