A friend of a friend, I knew of her for a year before we started dating. We dated for four years, were engaged for a year, and married for four years. In the space of that decade, I carefully preserved every memento: every photo of us, every card, every letter, every post-it note, every movie stub and theatre bill, every single sweet nothing, in a shoebox.
After four years of physical, mental, and emotional abuse, I was asked to leave my place of residence. I gathered what clothes I could carry, and–having nowhere else to go–slept in my car for a month. I rushed to find an apartment when she threatened to have my cat put to sleep.
20 years ago, having abandoned all my worldly possessions for the sake of my sanity, and with my beloved cat by my side, I sat in front of a fireplace on a blanket in the middle the floor in a Brooklyn duplex, and opened a bottle of overproof rum, and the shoebox. With slow deliberation, I removed each item and burned every last keepsake–and eventually the shoebox itself–committing a decade of memories to fire and ash.
It may be the most cathartic thing I’ve ever done.
Photo Credit: Getty Images