Box It Up

I was 18: young, dumb, and completely heartbroken. My girlfriend had just called and told me she had cheated on me, and everything I thought I knew was gone. In a sad and very fucking furious state, I gathered all of the things in my room; gifts, drawings, books, letters, clothes, anything with traces of her. I took all these things, dumped them in my front yard, and lit a match. I sat there for 30 minutes, watching the contents of our relationship withering away in front of me. While, at that moment, I was rightfully enraged and heartbroken, I'd have no idea how much I'd regret lighting that fire.

I wish someone would have just told me to get a box. To pack everything up and put it somewhere safe and out of reach. That one day, I may want to remember the moments we shared. That these memories wouldn't always be painful, and maybe even one day, I would look back and smile instead of hurt when I thought of her. I regret the time I spent trying to erase her from my life. It was like trying to skip over a chapter of my story and pretend it was never there, that it never happened. But it did happen, we happened, and the time we shared changed and affected me so deeply that there was nothing I could do to erase her. Not even setting an angry impulsive front yard fire. So now, 6 years later, I've been able to grieve the loss of her, our love, and the life I thought we would have, and everything is gone. The pictures we had taken together, the book she wrote me, every letter, all of it. It's all gone forever, and that still saddens me. To this day, it's still one of the happiest periods of my life, and to not have anything more than my own brain and memory to rely on is disheartening. While things ended sourly, the relationship itself was nothing like the ending, and that's how I want to remember that time: full of love, vulnerability, and growth.

Now let me be clear, I took years after this relationship to do the deep inner work and heal so that I can say what I'm saying now. In no way do I believe it's a good idea to hold on to a box of your exes' things and look at it every day and regret losing them. I'm saying one day, when the break up is in your rearview, and you've moved on from all that pain, you may want to look back and remember those moments again. Not to miss what once was or yearn for the relationship, but to appreciate the little moments that have shaped your life. In the choice between box and fire, choose the box.