ChickSpeak

It was during one of my Gilmore Girl marathon nights at college when I got the epiphany. In the middle of one particular episode, I almost choked on my popcorn (partially because I wanted to laugh and partially because I wanted to cry) as I watched the usually-composed Rory Gilmore hesitantly dislodge her “Dean Box” from the back of a closet. The first thought that crossed my mind was, thank God I’m not the only one. The second one, the so-called epiphany, was, why in the world do we do this to ourselves?

So girls, where do you keep yours? In the bottom drawer of your dresser, hidden underneath a pair of jeans? Somewhere in the vast abyss of memorabilia under your bed? I have yet to meet a girl who has suffered through a breakup and not kept what I like to call the “Ex-Boyfriend Box of Shame.” Mine, orange and full to the brim, sits in a corner of my room, in full view. After almost three years, I can finally walk by it and not feel that pang of heartbreak kick in again. Going through it, of course, is kind of a different story.

One of my recently-single girlfriends sent me a text a few weeks ago. It was a rash text, asking for my permission to take her load of relationship souvenirs straight to the nearest dumpster. Remembering Rory, whose mom once told her she’d be happy she saved the boyfriend things one day, I convinced my friend to “hide” the stuff from herself instead. Then, I proceeded to brave my own personal “Ex-Box.” (Warning: Don’t show this to your guys, chicks, unless you want them to be scared away by the possibility of such obsession.)

I’m not ashamed to admit that I hoarded everything from my first relationship. I pulled out pictures: professional senior pictures, prom pictures, candid pictures that no one else should ever get their hands on. Then I found ticket stubs: from movies we saw together, from basketball games or football games we went to when I visited him at college. And even CDs: CDs from him, or CDs with songs influenced by him. I also rediscovered notes, quotes, and inside jokes he scribbled down on Post-It notes here and there. There were more personal things: his college soccer schedule (with the games I attended starred and the wins checked off), a paint strip sample the same color as his eyes, a sweatshirt with his name stitched on the front, and the pocket square from his tux outfit our first prom together. After I got done sorting through the memories, I asked myself again, why would I ever keep this?

The truth is, girls, it hurts to keep it, it really does. Having a tangible record of the boy who broke your heart is not something that is easy to deal with. Sometimes girls keep everything from their first relationship because they’re still attached to their exes, and they believe that they can keep the illusion of their formerly-perfect relationship intact through things like CDs and old t-shirts. According to Fatima Meadow’s article, there are several reactions to breakups, and denial is one of them. If you have an in-denial, holding-on-to-the-past kind of motive for keeping memorabilia related to your ex-boyfriend, don’t keep it. If you aren’t willing to let him go and if you keep yourself from doing so, your ex box will never become something positively meaningful to you.

I kept every materialistic item that I associated with my first (and only) boyfriend because I knew that one day, after the bitterness of the breakup subsided, I would want to dig through it, and remember what it was like to be in love, especially with him in particular. Chicks, when I opened up the box just the other day, I did get the chills. But I also got reacquainted with lots of vivid memories that I had forgotten about amid the sadness of the breakup. If it wasn’t for the orange box on the floor of my room, I might have forgotten all of the “good” that came out of the relationship. ChickSpeak editor Lindsay Tigar explains it well: old memories make you recall “a time that was brilliant and good,” even if that time didn’t last forever.

That’s how it is for me, going through my ex-box full of things I knew I could never throw away. So, if you can, be Rory Gilmore. Save what you can, but don’t torture yourself with it. Save it, and look back on it, for the sake of reminding yourself what it was like to be uninhibitedly in the la-la land of love.

Jordan Oliver is a typical 20-year-old: hopeless romantic at times, bitter pessimist at others. In the next year, she plans to graduate from Ursinus College and pursue a career in magazine writing.