I do.
Quite some time ago I ended a relationship... one that meant a fuck of a lot to me. It was, to date, the hardest relationship to walk away from. I still have this box full of stuff though - I have a diary we kept together (he lived out of state and we'd write in it when we were together and whatnot), I have plane tickets, I have sporting event stubs, I have menus and business cards from restaurants we went to. I love this stuff. It made me cry tonight. I'm happy in my current relationship, but that doesn't mean I don't get sad over memories from the past.
My question to the women out there... do you do this too? If so, what do you do with the box once the relationship is over? I don't want to burn it because I'm not bitter and full of hate... I want to keep it, I want the memories. Is it wrong to keep it having a new man? I don't look through it often at all... the only reason I opened it tonight was to add something to it that I found in a pile of papers, and even tonight I didn't look through it but for 45 seconds.
Thoughts?
9 comments:
I'm actually doing that in my current relationship. I've got a box full of ticket stubs, movie stubs, it's basically full of something from every single date we've been on. But I have never done it before, and I'm still in this relationship. I think it would be hard to keep those reminders if my current relationship ended. I'd probably get rid of them and rely on my good old memory.
I have stuff from Matt (but we're married so he doesn't count). I had a bunch of my last biggie relationship and it got tossed (it was in my mom's basement) and I am really bummed that it's gone. I would have liked to have kept some stuff. But at my reunion we got our time capsules back (we did one our senior year in HS) and in it was a few things from that relationship. It made me happy (and kind of sad) but I messaged the guy on FB to tell him that I had it. He was glad because he doesn't have anything from us either.
I had one of those boxes from a previous relationship...someone who meant a whole lot to me. We didn't part on bad terms...we just parted. And I kept that box until about a year ago, when I was reminded that the past is the past for a reason. Joe knew it was there....he had stumbled across it one time very early in our relationship...and it bothered him, so I finally got rid of it. Then this year, that person found me on Facebook....and asked me if I still had all those things. Some were things he had given to me that had meaning to us, but more so to him...and I felt bad.
Makes me wonder if it was really worth it. LOL
I have a box and I have kept it for YEARS! IT's fun to go through every so often and think of memories and just laugh. My husband even looked at some of the stuff and thinks I'm such a Dork and that he is WAY BETTER than all of those Dorks living inside the box :)
Keep It! It's Fun and if you ever have a guy who gets jealous over a box then he has issues.
I had two boxes of stuff signifying two relationships I've had in the past. The first ended ok and I've kept everything. The second didn't end that great and I packaged up every single item that he gave me and gave it back to him telling him I didn't want it. That made him sad and makes me sad now that I think about it but I needed to do it at the time. I wanted no more tangible memories, which is very odd for me because I'm definitely a sentimental person. I also have a box with stuff from Michael too but I've started to limit what I keep. I do not find it necessary to keep movie ticket stubs and deflated mylar balloons anymore. :) If you're sentimental, keep the items from past relationships. I see nothing wrong with it since it's the past.
I used to do that. But after the Mister and I got engaged, I started thinking that maybe keeping a memory box for those past relationship was holding me back. I went through them and pulled out a few souvenirs that still meant something to me (cds and a few gifts) and got rid of the rest. The Mister and I have been together for 5 1/2 years, so these were relationships that I had had plenty of time to let get of.
i keep ticket stubs regardless of who i see the movie with, but i have kept a weird little thing from the beginning of my current relationship- one morning i didnt have anything to tie my hair up with, so kevin found a ball of string and gave me a piece so that i could make a ponytail. rather than throw it out, i coiled it up and it's in my jewelry box
I do! I have lots of stuff. From plane tickets to first cards to old wristbands. I don't have anything left from past flings though.
*However I haven't done anything with these 'treasures' yet! :)
I dated a guy off and on for 5 years and we ended up engaged. We were 6 months from the wedding when he broke up with me and to say that I was devastated is putting kind of mildly. I had a huge box full of things from our relationship - presents, arcade toys, tickets, cards, poems (he was a poet), a journal we wrote together, stuffed animals, fortune cookie fortunes, you name it. After we split, I kept it. I hardly ever looked at it. I kept it for maybe a year, and finally I had had enough. I wasn't mad - really I wasn't - actually I ended up very grateful to him for having the courage to end something we both knew should end. BUT I really finally felt in the end that it wasn't healthy for me to hang on to all that stuff. So I packed everything in a box and took it over to his apartment. At first he was ticked and thought I was trying to be mean, but I just explained that I needed to move forward and I wanted to give him the opportunity to keep anything he might still want before I got rid of it all. He ended up keeping it. Really, I wasn't being malicious, just cleansing. And boy, did I feel amazingly light when I rid myself of that box. It gave me the freedom to get rid of a very similar box from a very similar older relationship that meant even more to me. Which was really great for me too. And right after I did all that, I met my now husband. OK, that was a long story. I guess I think you just need to do what's right for you. In my case, I kept it until I felt it was impeding my growth and movement forward. Then I dumped it. Not out of anger or spite, but just so it wouldn't hold me back, you know? If this isn't the case with you, I see no harm. I also think that when you really really give your entire heart to someone else, maybe the desire to keep it won't be there anymore. Definitely the case with me.
Post a Comment