Love letters and gifts.

[Wolf Kanno]

Was cleaning through my things when I found a few old letters and notebooks from various loves of my life. It made me wonder if anyone else kept a hold of old letters or gifts from past or even current relationships?

[Scotty_ffgamer]

I think I probably still have some things sitting around in a box, but I've not intentionally really kept anything. There was a sort of girlfriend I had 8th grade-9th grade that I had a ton of notes from, but I think it was like the summer after the break up I gathered all of those notes together and set them on fire as a means to help force myself to move on. I was taking it really hard and just kept reading those old notes and holding on to things back then so it was important for me to get rid of them. 10th-12th gradeish I had a different girlfriend that we had some notes we passed, but we did more things like try to write a collaborative story and stuff like that. I'm certain I have that somewhere as I can never intentionally get rid of any creative writing I do.

[noxious.sunshine]

I have.

I have letters from my ex in Phoenix that he sent me after he got locked up. It's a long story. And I recently found a few pictures from when I was with him. I actually don't know where the letters are now, though. I guess they're lost.

[Shorty]

Yes, but I keep everything that people give me. Somewhere mixed around in my big mixed box of keepsakes are photos, notes from friends all through junior high, cards from friends and family members, plane tickets, concerts tickets, movie stubs, event tickets, transportation tickets, and loveletters. I still have the "I'm sorry" card my friend wrote to me after stepping on my finger with her ice skate (necessitating stitches) in the sixth grade, and a ticket stub from the very first movie I got to see with my friends (Spider-man, 2001).

so yeah I keep love letters

[Sephex]

I don't have them anymore because they were accidentally thrown out by my mom (no big deal), but a girl I knew in High School and I wrote a ton to each other. I was a sophomore at the time. We never really officially did anything, nor did we even do anything remotely physical outside of hugs, but we definitely did like each other. Her family moved to a different district after that year, so the reminder of High School I didn't talk to her. Keep in mind this was the days before cell phones or solid online communications. Sometime in 2006 she found me through MySpace (lol). We decided to meet up and she basically confirmed that she did "like" like me back then (which was only awesome because I had a friend who INSISTED that wasn't the case for years after that fateful sophomore year, so I got to rub that in his nose). She also implied that we would f*** that day if I wasn't in a relationship. It was nice catching up. I have her on my Facebook these days, and it is very apparent that things wouldn't work out romantically at all anyway. Not to say I think she's a bad person, but simply not my type. It's actually very hard to recall what we saw in each other now. Those were some fun days, though.

[Pumpkin]

No, I don't keep that stuff

[Shiny]

While moving I recently threw away old love letters and cards. I kept one gift from my ex, a stuffed Sonic.

[MissH]

Yeah I do. I have several memory boxes that contain love letters and cards amongst other things. I'm incredibly sentimental and think things like love letters are seriously romantic. I don't keep them because I still have feelings for my exes, just because they remind me of nice times and even if the guy turned out to be an idiot, he was nice once!

[fire_of_avalon]

Yeah, but if I'm going to be honest about it they really bring up a lot of pain, regret, embarrassment and general hurt. I accidentally came accidentally cross some things a few months ago and sat in my basement for a while just miserable.

So I don't look at them. I dunno why I keep them, I just feel like it's an important part of my history. And I sometimes wonder if the love letters I wrote are still out there, somewhere. Truthfully, I doubt it. And that kind of hurts too.

I'm glad all of my recent forays into romance have involved technology so that physical reminders aren't around.

I am not good at relationships, in case you couldn't tell.

[theundeadhero]

I still have all the notes my various girlfriends gave me in high school but they aren't a cherished treasure. They just happen to still be in the same spot I put them in at the time.

[Lonely Paper Star]

I still have some emails exchanged between me and my first boyfriend. I looked at them not too long ago and I cringed SO HARD at how mushy and naive I was. :lol:

[Loony BoB]

Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements - Baz Luhrmann, in Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)

It's important to keep positive memories as unfortunately we have a tendency to forget the good things and remember the bad as time moves on.

I can't remember the last time I looked at them, though, could be over a decade ago.

[Psychotic]

I have a shoebox full of memories which contains love letters - and indeed regular cards and letters that some of your good selves have sent me! - but I don't really look at it if I'm honest. I probably should but I guess I don't feel nostalgic very often.

[Shiny]

I honestly feel psychologically better when I've gotten to the stage of throwing away love letters because I am very sentimental so for me to throw something like that away means I am completely done with that part of my past. I feel the same when I prune people every so often on Facebook as that is the only way for some people to reach me. I will usually always save photos though. I love looking through old photos.

[MissH]

Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements - Baz Luhrmann, in Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)

It's important to keep positive memories as unfortunately we have a tendency to forget the good things and remember the bad as time moves on.

This is so true. I could quite easily tell you what total utter douchebags my exes were. The truth is, all of mt exes were also incredibly romantic and thoughtful and always sent/made me gifts and love letters or cds with songs that reminded them of me. Things can turn sour so quickly that it's less painful to remember what idiots they were then to hold onto thw good stuff! Relationships are so complex.

[-N-]

I don't have any old love letters, but many letters from old friends and forgotten friends.
I keep them around because they inspire me to maintain contact or renew contacts with people.
The success rate is pretty low unfortunately, but it's better than it would be otherwise.