I didn’t have weeping over a seven-year-old Valentine’s Day note on my bingo card for this week – but hey, life can always surprise you. The unexpected journey into soppy nostalgia was prompted by an initially casual, then fiercely impassioned, debate in the office. The hot topic on the table: should you keep mementos – love letters, cards, photos, keepsakes – from exes? Or does it prevent you from moving on? And could clinging onto those totems of the past be deemed disrespectful to your new partner, particularly if the pair of you are moving in together?
Our water cooler chat chimed with an episode of the latest Black Mirror; entitled “Eulogy”, it follows Phillip (Paul Giamatti) as he mines his memories of a recently deceased ex-girlfriend for poignant moments that can feature in her “immersive” memorial service. But it’s no simple task – in a fit of pique after their devastating breakup, Phillip all but erased the love of his life from existence, scratching out her face from old photos and redacting every line she ever wrote to him in thick, impenetrable marker.
I had assumed – naively and completely mistakenly, it turned out – that everyone would be on roughly the same page with this stuff. Of course you keep hold of it, I thought (and preferably without ruining every item with a Sharpie first). Shoved into a memory box next to wedding invites of friends long since divorced and postcards bought from forgotten gallery gift shops, all of it is destined to quietly accompany you down the years and across the many flatshares and house moves.
But it quickly became apparent that the subject of old flames was both contentious and divisive. People had Strong Opinions™ on the matter. One colleague was gearing up for a clean sweep of the previous romantic incumbent to placate their latest paramour; another admitted that they’d want a new partner to “destroy everything”, adding: “I would definitely feel jealous if they kept things for no apparent reason.”
Others argued that it was “nice, normal and healthy” to retain the odd souvenir here and there, that it’s more about cherishing the good memories you’ve had with someone than being an indicator that you’re not over them. Chucking out old love letters is such an alien notion for me, in fact, that the idea had literally never crossed my mind before. Truthfully, if a current boyfriend stated that our relationship was contingent on me parting with them, I’d more likely consider parting with the boyfriend.
I’m not alone in this sentimentality. One 2024 poll of 2,000 Brits found that 35 per cent held onto precious items from past relationships after a breakup. Cards and love letters were the most popular items to retain, followed by jewellery, tickets from events attended together and items of clothing. And this was a habit with sticking power: more than half (55 per cent) of those who admitted to keeping items said they had held onto them for over 20 years.
While I’m not quite at the two-decade point, I have some correspondence from 10 years ago. Nothing is precisely dated, but there are clues: mentions of first Christmases and Valentine’s, specific birthdays and references to lockdowns. Most of them are from my longest-serving ex, who used to hand-make me beautiful, funny cards for every occasion. As I delve deeper and realise I squirrelled away every single one during our five years together, I feel a surge of gratitude to my younger self for preserving rather than purging the past. Reading each one leaves me gasping for breath, the words achieving a feat of time travel more impressive than any Black Mirror-style piece of high-tech make-believe.
One minute we’re about to go away on our first holiday; the next we’re celebrating a year of living together; and then he’s thanking me for making the pandemic bearable. Some of it makes me laugh out loud – “Your loveliness is like the housing market: it continues to inflate exponentially with no sign of reversing” – while other lines, particularly from those early years when neither of us could quite believe our luck, leave me dazed and smiling. “Loving you is like breathing”; “every day is perfect now you’re here”; “meeting you has been the event of my life”.
Meeting you has been the event of my life. I mean… come on! Will anyone write anything even half as insanely romantic to me ever again??
There are other notes and cards here and there from the ghosts of boyfriends past (though none quite so fearless in their raw, abundant love), train and gig tickets too. And then there are the photos, so rare in this age of all things digital that it feels like uncovering a cache of fine jewels as the gloss finish catches the light. Most were taken on Polaroids or in photobooths, all sweat-beaded brows and comedy “props” as we tore ourselves off a dancefloor somewhere to pose and pout and pull stupid faces.
Here lies irrefutable proof that, for a brief, shining moment, I was someone’s whole world
It’s gratifying to still have these physical echoes, ones that don’t have to be “backed up” and downloaded from the cloud. There I am with one ex in a dark, blurry disposable camera shot, taken during a birthday pub crawl. There I am with another one, shamelessly snogging while wearing novelty hats at his cousin’s wedding. I remember the feeling of being so in love that it seemed to reshape reality, and there is something almost transcendent in the bittersweetness of it – the recollected dull ache of heartstrings stretched taut and twanging.
So it is that I find myself quietly crying into my morning coffee as I blow the dust off each memory and examine it. But they’re not tears of regret. There are no lingering “what ifs” to battle with, no earnest pining for “the one that got away”. No, it’s holding in my hands tangible evidence that, though I might not always feel “loveable” or beautiful or good enough, I was once adored beyond all measure by another human being. Irrefutable proof that, for a brief, shining moment, I was someone’s whole world.
I haven’t hung onto all this for “no apparent reason”. The reason is very apparent. It’s the closest I’ll ever come to receiving a Shakespearean sonnet. My only regrets are the bits I did get rid of: the ceremonial shredding of the letter that meant I was definitely done with my first love; the mix tape from my holiday romance; the Valentine from my year nine crush that finally convinced me maybe I wasn’t destined for eternal spinsterhood (despite the train-track braces and massive hair).
The truth is, it’s hard to remember the good bits of a relationship after the dust has settled. Far easier to keep going over the hurt again and again, and eventually wonder why you were ever together at all. Mementos can be a reminder – sometimes uncomfortable, but often affirming – that before things got bad, they were good. Before there was heartbreak, there was just heart, voluntarily plucked out of your chest and gently placed in the hands of another with so much vulnerability, so much trust, it makes your head spin.
Holding onto mementos isn’t holding onto the past, and moving on doesn’t have to mean completely forgetting the old flames who helped form us. Surely disposing of them is the real act of disrespect to everything you once shared?
I like to imagine the love letters I penned in a previous life still out there somewhere, tucked away in shoeboxes and stored at the bottom of wardrobes or under beds. I like to imagine them waiting patiently to be taken out and pored over every few years. And I like to imagine their words, softened yet made even more miraculous by the passage of time, reminding someone that, for a brief, shining moment, they were someone’s whole world.
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