Chapter Twenty Five; Consolation Prize

I am kind of a sap. I save things.

But not indefinitely.

I shred bank statements, throw out my children’s artwork (come on, how many popsicle creations does a person really need?) and sort through the family’s clothes every season. I donate, recycle, and basically just throw junk out that no longer has any use.

But when it comes to sentimental items? That’s a different story.

I keep everything.

Birthday cards from my high school boyfriend, letters my great grandma sent me in college, some junky old Christmas ornament I made in the first grade that my mom told me was beautiful (even though it’s nothing but about ten sequins glued to a Styrofoam ball).

I have all that crap.

Organized. Labeled.

Saved.

I am kind of a hoarder when it comes to matters of the heart.

I don’t know what I am envisioning. My great grandchildren going through my life in boxes some day long after my funeral and seeing that I had some kind of a life with a little bit of love sprinkled here and there? Maybe I’m collecting evidence simply to demonstrate that I was here on this earth for a little while.

And while I was.

It mattered.

And so, when things with Nick ended I didn’t throw anything out. Not that I had much. But I had a few things. He’d given me a coffee mug with the fire department logo on it. I use it. (Hey, it’s a perfectly good mug.) Although I feel like chuckling every time I do. It seems to represent the parting gift for a game show I was on and didn’t win.

“Thanks for playing! Here’s your consolation prize.”

Once you get past the heartbreak it honestly can be entertaining, the tangible remnants of a relationship that remain.

I once had a boyfriend who left his blender at my house.

Weird.

I did return that though. I really didn’t want to think about him every time I made a malt.

What I mostly have as evidence Nick was here are texts and emails he sent me. I don’t ever read them. But I love words, and those are meaningful to me. I know I’ll delete them eventually. But for now.

I just have them.

I also have pictures.

Every one he ever sent me. And he sent me a lot.

A picture’s worth a thousand words. After all.

Recently, I had blackberry issues. And I had to take my phone in. The texts remain, but several of the pictures are gone.

One of the pictures I’d planned to use at the end of this blog.

It was of the daisies he’d brought me. Bright, white, and beautiful on my kitchen counter.

I don’t know why we women take pictures of flowers when we receive them. Probably a meager attempt to capture the simple fact that someone thought you were important enough to acknowledge your presence with blossoms. Flowers mark our most memorable milestones after all. Birth. Marriage. Death. They announce that something grand and large has just taken place.

So when someone gives you flowers for no reason? They are a symbolic celebration.

Of just you.

And that. Warrants a photograph.

I lost that picture of Nick's daisies when I had my phone restaged.

But then, the other day, I pulled a book off my nightstand I hadn’t opened in quite a while.

And a pressed daisy fell to the floor.

I’d completely forgotten. I’d saved it.

Ironically, I’d placed it between the pages of a book about the love story of Spencer Tracey and Katherine Hepburn.

I picked up the crumbling remains of that flower and nonchalantly placed it on the cover.

An affair to remember. The title reads.

Ha.

Nice.

I think to myself.

How great of a relationship was this? Is it really worth remembering? I mean really.

What’s so great about a guy who roars into your life on a Harley?

And then leaves you with nothing but electronic correspondence, a coffee mug, and a dead daisy?

Doesn’t sound like an affair to remember to me.

Sounds more like one.

To forget.

I threw the brittle petals in the garbage. And headed to my laptop to hit the delete button a few hundred times.

And oh yeah.

Anyone out there need a sturdy coffee mug?

Because I have one.

That I really don’t feel like keeping.

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Yes . . . that really is the daisy in the photo on the cover of the book. What? I had to take a picture.

Oh, hey . . . I'm going to be on KFGO again next Wednesday, November 25th @ 9:00 CST. Hope you can tune in! I'll be talking about heartbreak . . . and healing.