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?
