Memorabilia

When I set out to write this blog, I had a single poetic phrase...
Things only last for so long, maybe that's the way it's meant to be. There is only so long that you can walk around with the memorabilia before it's as tarnished as the memory.

The back story...
There are things we get with people at the places we go to with them, things we hold onto to remember how we felt that day, how close we are to them, how much we care about them. These things we get can be in reference to the place, our self, even times directly about the person we're with. We all do it to varying degrees, but we all do it to some extent. Whether its that stuffed animal from the zoo with your best friend or that t-shirt from your first concert with a lover. Some people are selective of the things they get, some pack rat like no tomorrow with everything they could possibly choose to get. Some people shove the things out of their life as soon as it is seemingly over with whomever the feelings and attachments to the item are for/about. Everyone processes and chooses how to move through life and their emotions differently.

Now here's my dilemma. I am one of those people who has a good deal of things that I've held onto that draw me back to moments, places, people and emotions that are either completely still there or completely dead or somewhere in-between.  Most of these items are more about me or the place I was than the person I was with, but there are always traces of whomever bought it for you or you got it with. This is especially a hard pill to swallow for me with two specific items I own. (three if we're being technical.) These items are a dog tag I got at the Milwaukee Zoo (the item that started all of my thinking on the topic), and "the twins" they are two Build-a-Bears that I have had for 2/3 years and they probably are one of the things I hold the most emotional ties to.

Item one--the dog tag. I got this item at the Milwaukee Zoo with a at the time close friend. We still talk now and I know her as well as I ever did but I feel like we've grown distanced by our physical distance from one another. Any how this is an item that has been worn nearly every day since it was purchased. It went on the day I got it at that Zoo and comes off only when pretty much inappropriate to wear due to one reason or another. Recently I went to put it on and felt as though it has become more of a habit to wear than a representation of what that day meant and thus a real desire to wear it. This sparked my thinking about how we hold onto our memorabilia of life and people. This dog tag is getting worn down and discolored and resembles itself in the original purchase condition less and less the longer I have worn it.

the tag...

me wearing it

Item two--the twins. I received one from my sisters for my 19th birthday and the other from my fiancee on my 20th. In the course of our time together my now ex-fiancee and I considered them our children, even now she ask me about the "kids". I had been quit closely attached to my first bear as it held the love of my sisters in it and had been a pretty successful security blanket for me at school...this was something no one touched or held and I willingly left this item with the fiancee while I took my new little guy home once she got him for me. This new little guy came to be my new security blanket, it held the love of the woman who had my heart, how couldn't that be secure and comforting. I now after being separated from my fiancee have possession of both of the twins, they are rightfully mine after all. In these two bears I would say I hold much of the love and security I have ever had from anyone of importance, while there are some other items that have similar importance, they are an epicenter of love and security for me. The point is that much of their importance at surface level comes down to them being my ex and my kids and on a certain level that alone makes it so I don't know that I would ever be able to do away with them. However, it is memories far more than just being romantically involved with her that have me so entirely wrapped up in the possession of these teddy bears.

The twins and me

Ok and now that I may have lost my entire point to this post I'm going to try to make it....

I feel like there is a draw to hold onto the emotions and feelings of relationships and encounters and experiences but do they wear away with time, or evolve into something else entirely.
This dog tag seems to be an example of the wearing away that can happen, like the dog tag itself breaking down and becoming aged. I feel extremely distanced from all of the memories of the day it was gotten, I recall it but like a long lost dream, not an event that marked something good in a relationship (as I once saw it). They say you seem to romanticize what has passed and not recall the bad until it is upon you again but I feel myself letting go of all the romatisizations of that relationship and only recalling the bad of that day, and many of the days that marked that relationship.

With the twins however, there is a very different understanding of what is now my feelings on them. There is a sense of eternal attachment to my ex-fiancee, the level of being each others everything that we were, the level of love that was shared, and the amount of struggle and triumph we shared, binds us to one another in so many ways. I feel as though this is something her and I have really come to know with certainty, we will always love each other with a part of our heart, soul and self. Things could have gone differently but they didn't so our forever was cut short by worldly things but out there in the universe and cosmos there's more than meets the average eye. So as much as there are days when everything seems like a repetitious redoing of things done past, I recall that there is nothing repetitious about the love I feel from holding tight to this memorabilia when all I need is love.


So...now that I am done, I have no idea if I made my point or if I just bantered on but its a decent post to get out there into the universe, I may come back in a day or two and edit it, once I have some perspective to approach from. (edited 10/26/10)