Six, almost seven years is a long time to be with someone. Maybe not in the span of a whole lifetime, but it is in my lifetime. 1/3 of my life has been spent holding your hand, and having not only your back, but your heart too. Seven years of life lived together, and a lot of that time, for each other.
That’s six Christmas’s, birthdays, anniversaries and celebrations. All those events and years generated a ton of gifts, things and just crap in general. And I really just don’t know what to do with it all. Dealing with all the emotional turmoil, and the “what happened” questions from strangers is well warranted post-breakup, but why should I be left with figuring out with what to do with your things?
That’s not fair. Not that any of this is, not that you care. I’m just saying, you left so shouldn’t it be up to you to figure out how to get your student I.D. back and not mine? Why am I left to sift through all our stuff alone? I’m stuck with enough emotional and physical baggage to call for a bell boy.
I have all your lax shirts, my anniversary jewelry, your cologne, all those vacation souvenirs like that glass rose, love letters, etc. I even found your overnight toothbrush last week. It’s just getting ridiculous at this point. Hell, I even have your spare truck keys still! Remember how you gave them to me to bail you out every time you locked yourself out of your truck?
It’s ill-advised to stab the back of someone (more like chainsawed or Freddy Krueger’d) who has the key to your truck, but not the key to your heart. Now, when I’m feeling particularly irate with you, I fiddle with them and fantasize about hijacking the truck and driving it straight into our tree or Daybreak lake or something. It keeps my “crazy-ex girlfriend” feelings at bay, not that I don’t absolutely deserve the right to fully access those.
I debate daily whether I should make a trip to the dump and never look back, buy a shit ton of gasoline and light that baby up or call you and tell you to pick all your stuff up (not that you’d answer). But for now, I’m storing all our things in a box, hidden from view.
And I have a feeling if I gave all these things back to you, you’ll store them the same. In a back closet, buried under your bed, pushed and packed into a corner of the basement. You’ll store them the same way you stored your feelings, your memories of me: away.
You can block me on all your social media platforms to try and avoid facing the once happy girl you broke, but you can’t run away from the truth. I can attest.
This is because throwing away the last things that link you to me is hard. It’s the only proof you have left, besides the scars seared across your heart. It’s proof that you and I were once, you and I. It’s memorabilia from a time when love was innocent and pure and always enough.
Or maybe I’m wrong. As for all, I don’t know you at all anymore. Maybe you would throw it all away without any hesitation or maybe you’d give all my past belongings, to her.
I have hundreds of pictures of these two desperately happy people who saw the future in each other’s smile. Now, you are just a stranger, the antagonist of this stupid cliché of a situation you’ve thrust me into, and you’re walking around with all of my innocence and secrets.
I look at those pictures of you, smiling down at me, and all I can think is, “This poor girl. You have no idea what’s coming.” I want to protect her and tell her to run as far away from you as possible, but I can’t. Now, I’m stuck here dealing with the ramifications of a blue-eyed boy who naively promised me forever with every breath he took, to only take it back and give it to someone else seven years later.
Those eyes of yours don’t look nearly as bright and your smile doesn’t taste as sweet knowing what you’re capable of.
The juxtaposition of who we were in those pictures, and who you and I are now make my stomach curl. I don’t look at those pictures and see joyful memories I want to live again, nor do I see experiences I’m happy to have had. All I see are lies, and all I feel is betrayal.
And I don’t know what to do about that, because no matter how much I want to burn them in a fit of furry, those were seven years of my life too. What do I do with my pictures from all my birthdays, high school dances and graduation? Do I throw them away like you threw me? You were there for all of it, standing right beside me. I can’t erase you or the memory of you no matter how much I ache to. I’m stuck with you, forever.
So, here I am with all your stuff. And until I muster up the courage to set them to flame or throw them away or drop them on your doorstep, they’ll be buried deep in a box, collecting dust.
I’ll share one last secret with you, love. The very root of all of this is, these things take up too much space in my heart, and I’m trying to make room for someone else.