the memory of being loved

ph: margaret durow

I threw out the last of your things today. All of your letters, cards, and mementos are all gone now. That one last text that I had left in my inbox for months, telling me how much you loved me has finally been deleted. I haven’t actually looked at any of these things since the day you told me you didn’t love me anymore. They were more like ghosts. Things that haunted me, stuffed in drawers and closets, marking their territory as places I would have to avoid, unless I wanted to be reminded of what used to be.

The funny thing is, I never kept these things or clung to them because I believed you’d come back. I always knew better than that. I knew the moment you ended it that when you walked away you were walking away for good. And that moment will forever be engraved in my mind, in my heart, in my soul. I can’t shake it. It was like falling down a flight of stairs and landing on my stomach, having the breath knocked right out of me. It’s been five long months since that day. It took me five months to finally dispose of every last reminder of you because I was afraid. I was afraid that by getting rid of those memories that I would forget what it felt like to be loved like that. You fell out of love with me, and a part of me will probably always resent you for that. But at the time that those notes were written, those texts were sent, and those gifts were given, you were in love with me. And maybe it wasn’t the memory of you I was avoiding ridding my room of, but the memory of being loved wholeheartedly by someone.

Five months from the day my heart was given back to me in a million pieces, and I’m better now. I collected most of the pieces and put them back together. There’s just one little crack left, and I think that may always be there. The scar reminding me that I had a first love who I gave all of myself to. But I’m not bitter anymore, I’m free now; free to find someone to love me fiercely with everything they have. Free to find someone to love me the way I will love them.