The Museum of Broken Relationships.....

How do I deal with breakups? I gather up everything they've given me -- notes, letters, cards, etc. -- and give it all back to them.

What's that, you think I'm an ass? You want to break up? Well, these love notes you wrote a month ago sure don't give off that vibe.

Makes me feel better that they're gone, yet the other has to deal with it.

 

I never gave any of it back, I just disposed of it, sometimes with a ceremonial burning of the letters. Except the wallet. She gave it to me for my 19th birthday along with some cookies she baked and then we went to the state fair and it started raining very hard and my car's water pump died on the way back. It was a nice wallet, high-quality leather. It lasted about 15 years. Sometimes the wallet made me think about her but usually not. About 10 years after she gave me the wallet we got back together and were on-off for a few years. If she recognized the wallet, she never said so, so I don't think she did. It fell apart finally and I bought a replacement from a street vendor one day. A few months later my now-wife gave me a Coach leather wallet that is aging nicely and has developed the patina that quality leather gets. This one may last even longer than the other one.

 

I think I have a couple letters from my first bf, somewhere in a box, and one of those little baseball cards you got made of yourself in little league. I think that's all I have of exes' stuff.

 

I've got some random stuff, but nothing I probably couldn't throw out. Except a comforter from one ex.

I don't care whose it was orginally, I love this freaking comforter.

 

I used to have a hairbrush, though I didn't know about it until two moves ago, a toothbrush, and I still have a bunch of letters tucked away.

 

Stuffed childhood dog she gave me and the bra she left behind my bed, gave them back, despite urgings from melock to burn them.

 

I still have a ton of letters, photos and stuff from past failed relationships stuffed away in a box someplace. I hate throwing stuff away, especially photos.

Just wrote one of my best, old GFs last year when her father died; she wrote back with a great letter. So even though that relationship didn't end like I hoped it would 30 years ago, it doesn't always end badly. Some times it just ends.

 

I don't cook. Anyone who knows me knows this. Fresh out of high school I had a boyfriend who had the Leave-It-To-Beaver fantasy in his head and wanted me to play along. He thought all I needed to fall in love with cooking was the right equipment, so he bought me a $250 KitchenAid mixer (just like the one his own mother had, of course).

Now, I know a lot of people would go ga-ga over a brand new, gleaming white KitchenAid mixer with all the gadgets. But I didn't have a fucking clue what to do with it. I did recognize it as a nice (and expensive) gift, so I held on to it.

I was 19 when I got it, an age where one doesn't just put a kitchen appliance in the corner and forget about it for the next 20 years. I ended up moving that thing through three states and seven apartments before I finally realized I had never used it. Roommates with culinary aptitude had used it, and I enjoyed the results, but the reality was it needed to go.

My mom mentioned that my grandma had always wanted a big KitchenAid mixer. So I packed it up, wrote a "I'm running away from home" note to go with it, and shipped it to grandma. Fucking thing cost like $75 to ship because it was so heavy.

About once a year I get a box from grandma with cookies made using the mixer that was given to me by an ex I haven't talked to in 10 years. Funny how life works.

 

Sounds like you got the best of that deal, Cadet.

Me, I have pictures and clothes bought for me, and I hardly think of the hell the purchasers brought with them.

 

I've got shirts, too, and there's no way I'm getting rid of them.

 

At this point, I thought your story was going to go in a totally different direction...