A dilemma I never thought I’d have
Kasia October 13th, 2008
What does one do with old love letters? Or rather, what does one do with them when one is about to marry someone other than the author?
As I continued my seemingly endless slog through old term papers, report cards, tax returns, and who knows what else, yesterday I happened across old love notes, cards, and letters. I was at a loss.
My first inclination was to shred them, burn them, or otherwise dispose of them. Yet part of me is loath to do so.
Some of these date back to my freshman year in high school; others are as recent as two relationships (admittedly that’s almost ten years) ago. Most of the ones that have survived are from men I am still friends with to some degree (and yes, only friends). Most of them are now married. I even stood up in one’s wedding.
Canuck, to his credit, has no strong opinion about what I should do with them. (I say it is to his credit because I have an inkling that a less secure man would insist upon my destroying them.) He did facetiously suggest that I choose a middle path: shred them, but keep the pieces in case I want to put them together again. You know, for a rainy day project, like a puzzle. He even suggested I could paint a picture on the back of each to make it easier. (See why I love him so much?)
Anyway. On the one hand, it seems ungenerous to keep these sorts of tokens when the author and I have both long since given up any claim to each other’s affections. I mean, really - the most recent of these dates back a good seven years. As I mentioned already, most of these men have gone on to marry someone else. I myself am marrying someone else. And from a rational standpoint, I can’t see any reason to keep them.
Yet part of me - I suppose it’s the romantic part of me, which usually gets squashed by the practical part but has probably been enhanced by all the Jane Austen I’ve been re-reading and re-watching lately - yes, part of me is averse to destroying them.
I suppose it’s partially because it seems like rewriting history - destroying the evidence of previous attachments - but then, by and large I’ve only kept the ones written by men of whom I retained a good opinion after the dust settled. I didn’t keep anything from the pathological liar A, or from the pathological philanderer B (though he, very sensibly, may not have given me much in writing anyway, now that I think of it), and so on. So in a sense I’ve been doing that right along, I suppose. I did find one from someone I would wish to forget, but it’s far and away the exception rather than the rule.
In perfect honesty, I suppose part of it is pride as well - or is it vanity? Whichever it is, a little bit of me still appreciates that I was able to inspire affection, both in general and in these particular men (see above statement about still having a good opinion of most of them). And I cared about them too, quite intensely at the time, so I suppose the letters and cards are a little bit of me as well.
I suppose I don’t much care for the idea of my grandchildren going through my correspondence after I shuffle off this mortal coil and saying “Gee whiz, Grandma must’ve been a real dud,” but then, I can’t imagine wanting them to read these (no, none of them are R-rated - they’re love letters, not soft porn) - after all, who wants their most personal correspondence read by others? And I especially can’t imagine wanting them to think I would have ever entertained even the slightest regrets about any of the men in question, or any doubts about my love for their grandfather.
Because when it comes right down to it, I have no regrets. Even if I could turn back the clock and change things, and even though these are all good, honorable, kind and decent men whom I admire and respect…even so, I would not take any one of them in place of my beloved Canuck. Not for anything.
Yet I still feel somehow reluctant to destroy the letters. I’m not sure why. Maybe it is just vanity. Maybe it’s sheer sentimentality. Maybe it’s neither, or both. I’m not quite sure. I can’t think of a good reason why I wouldn’t destroy them, so I probably will…but I do wish I could understand why I’m hesitant. The chapters are all long since closed, and I have no wish to revise them. But is it wrong to retain the ability to re-read these excerpts from them?
I would say to keep them, because we are made for relationships and these letters represent positive relationships for you. Just because they weren’t right for you to enter into covenant with, does not mean that something in that relationship did not prepare you in some way to be where you are today. And because we are relational, I think it could be damaging to you, personally, to destroy them, as if they were not significant to you. And I wouldn’t worry about upsetting the Canuck; the best part of a marriage is knowing that it is permanent and that you are giving ALL of yourself to the other person and receiving ALL of them. By destroying the letters, it would almost be like saying, “You can have all of me — except for my past.” Such is the wisdom of Jaibee.
If the relationship is still one that is more or less healthy - that is, not from Pathological Philanderer, for example - I’d say keep them. To me, those kind of things fall under the category of “diary” or “plane tickets from Spring Break 02″ … they’re memories and they help you remember who you were back then.
Then again, I’m a bit of a packrat and have a box full of every (and I mean every) note I ever passed to my friends and boyfriends in high school. I’m 22. I also have well over 10 old journals, and a notebook full of movie ticket stubs dating back to 7th grade. It’s nice to be able to look back and remember the good times.
I do, however, have a grocery bag full of everything that has anything to do with the ex who broke my heart, just sitting in my closet waiting for a bonfire.
I still have most or all of the letters I got from two past relationships. They’re the two I think I was most involved with, and one was right before I started dating Dear Husband.
I don’t know why it’s so hard to give them up. It’s been years. I think, though, that it’s coming. My thoughts turn to, “How would my husband feel to find these?” and it would tear him up one side and down the other.
There’s incentive enough for them to hit the trash, you know? I think I’ll do that. Tonight is Trash Night anyway.
Keep the “best of” your collection. I chucked a lot of old superfluous stuff before our move here and did some culling then, and I knew I’d never be able to part with some of them. Maybe it’s partly vanity, but it’s also a way of keeping the roadmap to who I am now. Given my recent loss of “the runner up” as the Beloved calls him, I’m really glad I kept his letters. They were so funny and well written, even the ones where he took me to task for not reciprocating his feelings (he understood why, but still made his case) were laugh-out-loud funny in places. I smiled through tears reading them again last week, and it really hit me that God had a reason for NOT putting us together in the end. I don’t know that I’d survive the kind of loss his wife and son are going through now - not at all intact, anyway. So keep the ones that mean the most from the ones you’re still in touch with - it may give comfort or insight to their kids some day. You never know.
My advice…toss them. I totally understand the vanity part of it, and the fact that it felt really good knowing that you could spark those feelings in another person. I was faced with the same decision when moving out of my apartment, and then unpacking some stuff after I moved. I came accross the letters, read 5 or 10 of them. It made me feel really good and all warm and fuzzy inside!!! Then I realized that there is a reason that none of them are with me right now. Whether it was because one wanted to make sure he chooses the right wife, or one cheated on me in Europe, or one I was forbade to see from my father. I’m with the one person right now that makes me feel all those things and more. Memories of the past sometimes hurt (me at least), for whatever reason the relationship ended. The most important man, the one you’re going to spend the rest of your life with, is already with you…
Just my $.02…
I kept mine from my old flame until long after Bear and I were married, then I just got rid of them, because I felt like it. Bear still has letters from his old girlfriends.
Old letters are a funny thing. Some people want to keep them, some people need to keep them. Some people want to be rid of them, some people need to be rid of them. ( Oh and then ….there are the people who worry too much about where they fit in. )
You obviously want to keep them, so that decision is made. Wanting to keep them is perfectly acceptable response.
So that leaves.
Do you need to keep them?
Do you need to get rid of them?
Only you know what memories the letters bring back.
If there is no need either way, do what you want.
I think I had been married for 5 or more years before I threw my old love letters away. There is no harm in keeping them. But there’s no point either.
But then again, I’m neither a packrat nor a diary-type person.
Throw them out–you don’t need all that stuff cluttering up your house! Of course, I’m a chronic de-junker.
I grew up around people who scrap-booked everything! It became more important to “scrap-book” their
lives then to live them–I gained a great dis-taste for keeping stuff. The way I figure it, when you die, and
your kids have to go through your stuff–they will just throw it away anyway–holding on to them just keeps you living in the past–move on to the future!
Burn ‘em.
It’s a harsh thing to do but is in the end for the best. I kept on going back to fotos, e-mails, letters, etc., from my evil college girlfriend SOQ who cheated on me with one of my best friends from high school, and in the long run I decided it wasn’t worth it. Mental masturbation, if you will. So I took ‘em out in the backyard, doused ‘em with alcohol, and let the flame a-lit.
Xerox them and send the copies back to the person what wrote ‘em, along with ransom demands for the original. But even when you send the original back, keep an extra copy, just in case.
Or have I been watching too much Coronation Street again?
TBS
You might just as well burn the Ilyiad.
James
I say get rid of the letters but keep the old photos. The letters express feelings that are now past and, frankly, could be an embarrassment to future generations.
Keep the photos, especially if they reflect the times.
My father has a box of photos including those of old girlfriends because they were integral parts of the neighborhood gang (back when “gang” meant group and not a bunch of thugs). When I was a teenager, he showed us kids photos of his childhood home and they were in there. It was fun to see who MIGHT have been my Mom (especially since a couple were full-blooded Finns - gosh, I could have been TALL if he hadn’t married our teeny moml!).
I have old boyfriends’ pics in a few of my albums of college life. However, I have thrown out pics of the men I’ve most recently dated. I’m of an age when I enjoy forgetting their names!
Put them in a box. Tape the box shut. Write the date on the box. Hide them. If you haven’t opened the box in one year - TOSS them! Unopened.
The only love letters you will ever need are the Canuck’s. Trust me on this. One day you will have babies who will turn into children who will love to hear the stories of your young loves, and you will tell them about ol’ Billy Martin or Joey Maloney… but you don’t want to have the letters to show them because they only know you to love their Dad. Pictures are OK-it is fun for my kids to look at my old Prom pictures or their Dad’s old Homecoming pictures… but Carl and I got rid of all “informal snap shots” and love letters from other people when we were engaged. Yes, past loves have helped you to become the person that you are today… but the person that you will be tomorrow is Canuck’s wife and the mother of his children. Does this make sense? Am I blabbering?
Bottom line… read them one last time for laughs and toss them. We all have our memories, but we don’t need to keep Joey’s letter in the back of the closet when we have real love right in front of us.