Ex-Fairytale

I was watching a Taiwanese show the other day and they were interviewing this celebrity in Taiwan who had revealed in another interview that he rips all the letters and cards he receives from his girlfriends right after he reads them. This revelation generated a wave of responses, mostly negative of course. People everywhere felt offended and called him cold-hearted, stone-hearted, etc. The interviewer asked him about his thoughts on the responses and his defense was that there's no reason to keep those type of things. He claims that he's pretty smooth about it when he does it. First of all, he rips it in front of the girlfriend, so not behind her back, and he tells her that he already remembers what was written in his heart.

Setting aside the questionable defense of "ripping" the items, as opposed to just tossing them out, as well as the believability of his cheesiness working on his girlfriends, his fundamental rationale is not without merit. What do you do with stuff like love letters and cards your ex's give you? What happens when you get involved in a new relationship? At what point in your life is it legitimate for you to be re-reading them and reminiscing?

I keep all my old things. I have cards and letters dating back to grade 1 or something, from anyone. I rarely go back to read them, especially the ones that are written by classmates on Valentine's day or bdays that just says "Happy whatever occasion". But are you allowed to throw the material proof of these sentiments out? They were thoughtful at the time of the exchange, but do we need to store the cards to remind us the worth of the sentiments they represent?

I don't really have an answer to that, and I think for the most part, people only throw them out after a while. Some people even have timelines: after 3 months, 6 months, 1 year of receiving them, or once they're past the point of celebration, such as Christmas cards. Once the objects have attained their values worth, they go in the trash bin. There are of course, many who will opt to keep ones with thoughtful and loving messages from special people and throw out the rest.

But keeping stuff from special people like friends you get to keep forever and like family whose ties you can't sever is easy? What do we do with Ex's material? I remember the last time I went through some of my old ex stuff and with some I think "wow, i can't believe how naive and immature we were" and with some i think "wow, that was so bs, i can't believe i didnt see through that" and then wonder to myself, really, what is the value in keeping these things?

The other day, I was in Adam's basement and I saw a corner full of pictures of his ex-girlfriend and a homemade postal board Christmas card with pics of them and loving words all over from her ex-girlfriend. He put them there cuz he doesnt know what to do with them. I looked at the stuff she made for him and i told him i thought she was very sweet. He responded with sad shrug and said, "Yeah, things were good in the beginning, but then eventually everything changed."

So really, in the end, the card with all those loving sentiments just became a sad reminder of how unreal your present reality can be. You may think that at this moment you love each other and want to be with each other forever, but one day, the feelings get lost, they fade, they change, and then everything you said in the past can no longer be held true. At that point, what do you do with those words and those thoughts? Their materialization--are they kept as a reminder of how much you were loved at one point or are they a reminder of how untrustworthy reality can be?

I haven't figured out an answer yet for this either, and at the moment, i still retain all my old momento. I'm secretly glad there weren't that many photos in frames to be kept around. Letters to be stored in a box is one thing, photos in big frames are another. I remember having the prom pic of me and brad up in my room and how uncomfortable that made mike. I put it away throughout our relationship and it resurfaced after. My excuse is that it's not about the relationship i revere, but about my childhood, my prom, my friends, and it holds true. But if you ask me what i would do with the frame and picture if it was not about prom, I have no idea. Maybe take it out and put it in another shoebox.

Nevertheless, all that previous rambling is really a preamble to the real question that I really want to figure out...should I be writing cards and making photo collages to show someone how much i love him? Do I want to be another ex-girlfriend one day who sits in the corner of someone's basement reminding him of his failed love? The cynic in me says that there is no reason i need to materialize my feelings. If we stay together, then the love is self-evident; and if we are not, then it would save us both the pain from memory. But the little girl that got buried a lot deeper wants to believe that, some day, these will become the proof that fairy tales do exist.

Let's hope I'm not wrong, for all of us.