12. KEEPSAKES
4/25/25
Hey Chadderbox,
I need a space to write. I know you wouldn’t mind. I miss you.
Love,
BreSoftware
I keep the keychain my ex boyfriend gave me on my keys because the weight feels right.
Comfortable.
Taking it off now would require me to readjust. I’d second guess if I had everything every time I’d grab my bag to go. Because it’d be lighter. Different.
Different feels uncomfortable sometimes
Usually, actually, to me.
The keychain was a gift from a few years ago.
I rarely think of him now.
But I like to keep the gifts people give to me when they love me.
I had that love once, I have the keychain still
Keepsakes that last even after the love fades.
Years later I’m experiencing another breakup. I’m writing to help find healing. As always.
My joy exists and I nurture it.
My love is not wasted.
It existed and it was real.
I finally gave it all.
It’s easy to focus on whether or not it was kept -
To think about how easy and fast it was to discard entirely -
My tokens of affection, intimacies, secrets, our sharing
The tears come quickly.
No.
I gave.
I’ll give again.
I think of the Giant Slide shirt still in my closet. It was a gift I gave him for Christmas, but we’d both wear it.
I dropped everything off at his place right after he told me
But I forgot that.
Would that be my keychain?
I don’t like how mean my thoughts can get when I’m hurt.
Thinking of things I could do or say to convey the pain to someone else.
I have hints of my dad in me where I can think of things that could cut them to their core,
but I don’t want to be like my dad.
I feel like that’s why I’m here in the first place.
My dad made me feel stupid often.
Worthless.
To try to combat that I tried to be one step ahead always.
I overcompensated so when the time came he would be less likely to make me feel small.
In school, church, social interactions, sports. I studied.
I had to learn so I could protect myself. It was exhausting.
It made me smarter overall.
But when life happens in real time
And I need a moment to stop
Think
Process
And I don’t have the answers ready to feel safe, to protect myself
But I’m asked repeatedly to answer anyway
I feel small again
I feel defenseless
I just need a moment
But the questions keep coming
And I don’t have the answers right now
I say the wrong thing, I am made fun of
I am back in my deepest wound
I touch my hand to my chest and hold my heart
Gunk seeps out, infected and hot
I have worked so hard all my life to avoid feeling like this
I feel like a failure again
the way someone who was supposed to love me should have never made me feel
But I have autonomy now I didn’t have as a child
I communicate my need for some time and space when things get like this.
We’d talked about it before, again and again.
We’d prepared for this.
But my need is dismissed, and the pressure rises
I remind them of my need
I am dismissed again
The pressure keeps coming
And my brain tells me I’m not safe
And I see both of us there, feeling small in our own ways, struggling
I feel pain for us both
But I cannot heal his wound
And this cycle keeps reopening mine
We told ourselves we would not do this again
I wanted it to be right. I tried harder than I ever have. I worked on so many things. I practiced being better. I fully opened up.
When it first started happening, I studied the plan for the next spiral and practiced the words in the mirror.
I love you, I need a minute. I love you, I need a reset.
I love you, my brain just needs some time to process this, I don’t want to say the wrong things.
Can we stop and try again tomorrow?
If I was given that space and time, we’d come back and better communicate what was really going on. We’d figure things out. We’d grow closer because of it.
But our plans rarely worked. Anxiety reigned supreme and whittled us both down.
I didn’t want to separate because I loved him so much. But we could not figure out how to stop. We tried, but we couldn’t.
Calling it hurt so intensely already.
Then it hurt even more.
I’ve always hated knives because their destruction feels personal, intentional, ruthless. Cruel.
I read his text and dropped to the floor. I felt stabbed.
The thought of being with someone else made me physically sick.
He saw it as a cure. 24 hour bug, I guess.
In the days after, I replay every pivotal moment, over and over, as I do a deep clean in the room where we slept.
I open my closet and I’m met with a twist of the knife.
I had returned everything, I thought.
I picked myself up, put everything in one bag, and drove.
But I forgot that shirt
Where he realized he loved me
When we decided to lean in
I feel a deep hurt I’ve never experienced before
It is lasting and it is intense
I am navigating it as well as I can
It’s so hard not to internalize it all
I am mending my heart now and learning how to do it in real time.
I am a private audience to my joy, my humor, my thoughts, my anger, my sadness.
I lay still and feel, take notice of where and how my emotions present in my body.
A heavy, dark cloud over my heart.
My lungs feel punctured. The anxiety makes it feel impossible to catch my breath.
I couldn’t name what I was feeling initially - I was so quick to fall back into the learned belief I had when I was young:
“I’m stupid. I’m worthless.”
I didn’t give myself time to recognize I wasn’t actually feeling stupid -
I was feeling shock and betrayal.
I breathe and let them live
Shock, betrayal
Different, uncomfortable, here
I give myself time.
I give myself space.
I give myself what I need.
I pull the knife. I keep the shirt.
