The Boxes Where Our Memories Go

It will never quite make sense to me how it all fell apart, but all that really matters is that it did.

There is a lot of clutter in my head.

Empty, imaginary boxes will hold the memories I no longer need, so I can move on. There will be one box for the good memories and one for the bad, but I suppose to let him go; I have to get rid of both. Push them back into the dark crevices of my mind where they can be forgotten. The good will only hold me back. The bad will fester inside me and weigh my heart down. So the process begins. 

It’s funny how relationships work. One day you’re floating around cloud nine, laughing and carving pumpkins with this amazing person that makes your insides flutter. The next, you’re crashing to the ground, and the butterflies are ripping at your insides, trying to break free. 

Somehow I forget that happiness is fleeting when it involves something outside of myself.

In the end, I’m not really sure who he was anymore. So in my head, I split him in two. The man I had fallen in love with and the man that left me shattered into a million little pieces. 

I must tell you about the first man to understand why I fought so hard and stayed so long in a place that offered me nothing.

The days were still warm from the leftover summer heat when I met him in October at one of my favorite bars in San Diego. I had accidentally arrived drunk, having spent all day drinking mimosas at brunch. I couldn’t really hide it, and he thought it was funny. He suggested we go next door instead to get me some pizza. And that was it. We were together after a few drinks, some slices of pizza and a kiss goodnight. 

It was all effortless at first. 

He had echoed my laughter. I was constantly gasping for air at the silly things he would say, and in turn, he would mimic my hysterics, making me laugh even more. He had funny little names for me that I adored. I loved hearing his accent, even through his text messages that always sounded proper and made me smile throughout the workday. 

He would tell me stories of him as a young boy growing up in Ireland and working in a pub at the young age of 16. When he ran out of real stories, he’d make them up and tell me of a zoo where the humans would be petted by the animals. It all seemed so lovely. 

Music always filled the air as he plucked away at the strings of his guitar or fiddle, playing a melody that made my heart sing. Affection flowed freely between us. He would kiss me whenever he could. As soon as he saw me getting ready to leave his bedside, he’d pull me in and keep me longer. 

There was no guessing, no question. It was clear he wanted me and I him. 

One time we took to the mountains for a weekend of camping. As the night sky fell upon us, we caught a glimpse at the same shooting star, but I had everything I had ever wanted, so instead, I whispered thank you and hoped the universe would grant his wish instead.

All those things have to go in a box now. They can’t live at the forefront of my head and keep me in a place that no longer exists. 

Silence was never a good thing in any of my relationships. I knew something had shifted between us the minute the room went quiet, even when he refused to admit it. I couldn’t move. I stood in the hardening silence, waiting for the shot to my heart, but he refused to pull the trigger. He held me there, lingering hope before me as though love was still within reach for the next two months. 

I was never really good at walking away. As long as there was hope, I would fight. So I tried. I bent. I compromised. And he shut down, pretended like I wasn’t there, and gaslit me by telling me he wanted me when everything he did said the opposite. 

Somebody once told me the opposite of love isn’t hate. It’s indifference. I understand now what they meant. I could feel it cutting into me as he lay as far as possible on the opposite side of the bed, refusing to touch me. I could feel it gripping at my throat whenever he’d leave the room while I was still mid-sentence. Neglect was a pain I had never felt before. It ate slowly away at me. Inhaling my laughter. Robbing me of my self-confidence. And beating the pulp out of the love I had once had for him. 

It drove me to crazy places. The places you only go when certainty and security are lost in the spaces where love once existed. I felt needy. And insecure. And sometimes even ugly. 

I kept trying to find answers. Where did it go wrong? When did it all change for him? I just didn’t want to accept what I already knew. He was slowly leaving me. And the longer I stayed, the more pieces of me went with him. 

I know it wasn’t me, and I know I deserved more, and I know all these things that people have told me to comfort me, but they don’t keep the mind from wandering through the cracks where self-pity festers when the person that once made you so happy is now destroying you with his inability to show you any sort of compassion. 

He had taken off on a self-exploratory journey, and I never really saw him again. I mean, he physically came back, but I never saw that first man again. There was no laughter or music or chatter. There was just silence. Silence has a sound, too, you know? It sounds like butterflies dying. Like a heartbreaking. Like a stomach churning in anxiety. Like pain escaping in loud sobs.

Eventually, I grew tired of hoping for a miracle. I took whatever courage I had and fueled it with cheap wine. I marched into his room, placed my heart on the cutting board and handed over the machete. 

Just say it, I said. You’re the one that wants to break up, so just say it. 

Silence. 

Fucking say it. 

I can’t do this.

Finally. 

Now it’s time to seal that box as well. The box containing all the pain, and all the mess left over from a lonely battle. I put it away and distracted my mind from trying to dig it up. Running from heartbreak as fast as I could.

After years of carrying the weight of everything leftover from that relationship, I finally opened the boxes. Like shattered glass, even broken memories can shimmer when you shine the light just right. Little by little, I’d glue myself back together. I’d also find the place where I cracked him in half and make him one again. Not the man I placed on a pedestal above me and not the devil I made him out to be. Just a flawed human like everyone else. 

As I rode down the busy Vietnam streets on the back of a motorbike on my own self-exploratory journey, I’d whisper the words “I forgive you” and send them off into the wind, making space where the boxes used to live for love to grow again.