Do you keep little momentos from past loves... letters/cards, ticket stubs, pictures??? I just ran across a box of lovely letters from my first love (thank god there was no email then... I would have missed out on these great, handwritten letters - but that is another topic entirely!) and I was so moved. Do you discreetly keep items from your past? How would you feel if your NOW significant other had a few items stashed away (and we are talking sweet things - not a questionable home movie that is whipped out every time you walk out the door)? Is it nice to sometimes take a look back (keeping everything in perspective, that is) or should we just heave all these things out and rely on our memories? ...

-- Anonymous, November 26, 2000

Answers

No. I throw everything away. I keep cute things that the kids have made, but not everything. I've moved so many times and don't need extra crap to lug with me.

-- Anonymous, November 26, 2000

What a timely subject! About five minutes ago I finished cleaning out a cabinet from my bedroom at my parent's house. I found stuff from first grade through college, and my old retainers! I just threw most of the stuff away, except for some yearbooks and other books that I'm going to give to my nephew.

-- Anonymous, November 26, 2000

Packrat. I can't get rid of hardly anything. I horde bottles, jars, 3 copies of the same book, broken jewelry, dozens and dozens of outgrown clothing items, knick-knacks- all because I'm sure that 1) I'm going to be glad I saved it someday and 2) I'm SURE it'll come in handy someday.

And actually, I've been right. My Gram's a packrat too, whereas my mom ruthlessly throws stuff away. I'm STILL pissed about the 30-year- old breadbox she chucked! And, as mentioned in the furniture topic, I've been recycling lots of Gram's old furniture in our new home....

-- Anonymous, November 26, 2000

Uhm... I was thinking more about "love momentos" - things from past relationships, not just general stuff...

-- Anonymous, November 26, 2000

I keep all kinds of "sentimental stuff". I have several boxes packed away, one with old journals, another with notes I passed back and forth with my friends, and (my favorite) one with love letters. I go back all the time and read the stuff, it always makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. All over my room there are momentos of past and present relationships...a jewelry box of ticket stubs, pictures on the wall, a guitar pick, clothes, two deflated beach balls...its all special to me, and I love being surrounded by happy things when I'm bummed out.

-- Anonymous, November 26, 2000

I used to have a ton of stuff that the ex-love-of-my-life gave me. Cards he made for me, letters...a lot of stuff that meant a lot to me. But I saw him somewhere a few years ago and I got pissed off and sent it all back to him. I regret it, really, because it was a big part of my life and I'm sure I wouldn't be where I am now, as happy as I am now, if I hadn't gone through that bullshit.

I also have CDs that one of my other ex-boyfriends made for me -- music and tons of pirated software.

I mean!

Legal software.

-- Anonymous, November 26, 2000

Oh, and the boyfriend who made the CDs for me? Those were literally the only things he ever gave me, apart from rugburn. I was glad to see him off, needless to say.

-- Anonymous, November 26, 2000

Well, I'm just not that sentimental. I think there are still some love letters at my parents house from my husband. Or not. I may have chucked them the last time I was home.

-- Anonymous, November 26, 2000

Nope. Chucked it all. But then, the serious boyfriend and my husband, ahem, *overlapped* so there was some bitterness there. The only prudent thing to do was chuck it all.

-- Anonymous, November 26, 2000

ikept all the stuff brett gave me i just cant throwd it a way. even the ugly jewlery he gave me :(

-- Anonymous, November 26, 2000

I used to have a lot of letters and photos from a previous "love", but I threw them all away. I decided to make a clean break from certain people in my past about 9 years ago, so I could finally grow up. Otherwise, yeah, I keep a lot of stuff from my past. To what end, I don't know. But I keep it. From time to time I will look through it and sometimes I will throw something away. Not very often, though.

-- Anonymous, November 26, 2000

I have a few pictures that have old boyfriends in them and some of my first husband. I don't plan on telling my daughter about my first marriage until she is old enough to dig around on her own, find the pics. and ask me about them. I saved an inch thick stack of emails from my '97 boyfriend because my rational at the time, was to show my daughter how someone can have one personality on the Internet and be a total wacko in person. The truth is, they are quite beautiful. I just wish his feelings could of been directed towards a real person.

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2000

Does old bondage equipment count as "momentos"? Yeah, I've got some old stuff (notes, cards.)

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2000

Old bondage stuff -- ha. Yeah, don't throw that stuff away. It's not cheap.

When I was still in college, I went through all my jillions of letters and picked out one from each ex-boyfriend (the literate ones) and a couple from each girlfriend. I put them all in a shoebox that I've had ever since. The shoebox is in a bigger box with my diaries and yearbooks and stuff. Rereading the letters amuses me. I would never save ticket stubs because I have an aversion to small, torn pieces of paper.

Even though I wanted to throw away photographs of this one ex, and I even crumpled them up, a friend convinced me to keep them. She said I'd want to be able to show my grandkids that I'd been able to score with more guys than just Paul. So I have those pictures in my oldest album, along with all the letters and diaries. They make me laugh, too. And that guy was hot. And my hair looked like Robert Smith's from the Cure.

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2000

I was really mature when DumbAss and I broke up... I packed up all the cards and letters and jewelry and stuffed animals and pictures because I figured some day I'd be glad I saved them. About a year or so later, I saw the box in Gram's storage shed, poked around it, and realized it meant absolutely nothing to me, so I threw the stuff out.

The Husband-Type Man, unbeknownst to me, saved EVERYTHING from our first year of courtin', and, for our 1 year anniversary he presented me with a series of scrapbooks he'd made with ticket stubs and cards and e-mails and a calendar marking things we'd did.... He still saves stuff... I think we're up to 3 boxes by now....

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2000

I've got pictures of all of my old flame fatals and some letters. I even have a diary entry from "Her". She found a diary I used to keep and finished an entry I had been making before a week long backpacking trip. Believe me if I had read it before I went on the trip, I would never have gone. I still get a little blurry when I read it. Oh the pain! Oh well. I guess it's been all for the better. Who knows. I made collages out of a bunch of pictures from my history and there are all sorts of girls photos in them. Guys, girls and a lot of backpacking trip stuff. Hot springs and all. My wife kinda understands. They're my memories and I treat her really good. James

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2000

I have every single letter, birthday card and note that was ever given to me. I'm really glad that I kept all that stuff because every now and then like every other year or so, when I'm depressed about something and it's raining outside, I'll look at all that stuff, the rare letters from Dad, my gran and so on and have a good cry. I'm a sentimental fool. The stuff fits in three shoeboxes, and nobody but me knows they exist so if I die in an accident they'll find out everything that ever mattered to me (not to forget all my little secrets).

-- Anonymous, November 28, 2000

Well, seeing as I was with my one of my ex's for 8 years!, from age 16 to 24, I had a lot of shit to think about getting rid of when we broke up. It took me a year to give away stuffed animals and other stuff that I thought would be a shame to throw out. A year after that I threw away a lot of stuff we'd "collected" as souvenirs from trips and outings. But I saved every letter, card, picture and a piece of framed art that was autographed and made out to Letty and Luis. That is still on my wall 'cause the piece is just too cool to get rid of. My current boyfriend has never taken a close look, and if he has...he hasn't commented on it. Whew! Luis and I are still "friends" and so when he moved this past summer he asked me what he should do with all my letters and pictures. I asked him not to throw them away and to give them to me. I never got 'em, but I don't know what he did to them. Maybe he still has them. Sigh. Anyway, I also want to save that stuff and other letters, pictures e-mails from x's to show to my grandkids that my life was full romance, fun, adventure etc.

One thing I am still mad at my mom about is that she took it upon herself to throw away a box of letters that I saved from Gwen from age 15-18. Can you imagine? I'd give anything to get those back. :)

-- Anonymous, November 28, 2000

I have quite a few of the notes my friends and I used to pass each other in class back in high school....I brought them to a wedding shower for one of said friends and we read them out loud and just about herniated laughing. It was such a good party game that it was worth the years of storage.

-- Anonymous, November 28, 2000

Here's a tip for the fellas...don't let your wife find pictures and letters from your ex-girlfriend while she's pregnant. Take it from a gal whose been there, that's an afternoon my husband and I will never forget.

As for me, I don't keep anything. The only things I'm sentimental about are my son's baby things.

-- Anonymous, November 28, 2000

The Husband-Type Man still has all the notes and cards from his ex- gf. It don't bug me none.

I hope to God DumbAss never saved anything from our relationship. Considering his now-wife/my ex-best friend, who demanded that his mother take all the pictures of me out of their photo albums, I seriously doubt he did, even if he'd wanted to. But I really hope he wouldn't want to, anyway.

-- Anonymous, November 28, 2000

I had every email (to and from) my most recent ex, but when my e-mail provider had issues with Lycos, they disabled all accounts on their system including mine, and all the love notes et al are vapourized.

I was gutted.

Other than that, I generally don't save mementoes other than photographs.

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2000

I have been married for over 24 years. Everyone I dated before my wife is so fuzzy in my memory that I can't truly get a clear mental picture of what they looked like. Besides, the heavy-duty stuff my wife inflicted on my psyche scorched me clean like a blank slate. She was a major turning point in my life and all the stuff B.H. (Before Her) seems like it happened to someone else. I was a crazy man when I can back from Vietnam, hellbent on self-destruction. I only went to college because that's where the action was. I have never considered divorcing her. I've considered KILLING HER a few times, though. :D So the answer is no, I haven't kept a thing.

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2000

Everyone before my soon-to-be-husband was just temporary diversion, or in some cases a temporary madness. Even the ones who terribly upset me at the time turned out to be so insignificant in the larger picture that they are very dull in my memory. As a consequence, I feel no need to keep things from them. This topic is actually kind of timely for me, since I have been going through a lot of my things in preparation for moving. I've found many old letters and mementoes, and I've gone through them and chuckled over them and had the obligatory thoughts of how stupid I was and how ridiculous they were, and then I threw them out with no regret whatsoever.

I do like to keep things, but I like to do selective packratting. I'm terrible at throwing things out in an everyday sense, but every little while I'll go through everything and just keep the things I think are important.

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2000