Midnight Memories

I spent a lot of time tonight catching up on old blogs and now a million posts are running through my head. Inspired by some of my favorite blog authors. Inspired by new authors I stumbled upon. Even inspired by a photo I saw when I googled "cat in hammock."

Yes, I googled "cat in hammock." Official Cat Lady right here. I need a badge for my blog.

Anyway, Blogging Barbie's post about her Ken made me think of some of my exboyfriends. Some of them might read this blog from time to time, so I won't outright criticize them (much) but sometimes? When I'm doing something mindlessly and thinking about old times or friends? Sometimes I think "what was I thinking?!"

I think it's healthy to realize that my ex's were so wrong for me. A psychiatrist might disagree. This is why I don't go to a therapist and pay them to argue with me. Dan will do that for free.

When we moved out of our last apartment, I purged a lot of crap from our closets. Magazines that I swore I was going to cut recipes from. Books I hated the first half of but told myself I'd give it another chance someday. Candles I received as gifts that made my nose wrinkle up. All the stuff we didn't want went either to Good Will or the dumpster. Including my box of mementos.

The box was full of random things that reminded me of good times with a few of my past loves. Including, but not limited to:

An envelope made from different colors of Duct Tape. Inside was a heartfelt letter from my first love, telling me that he'd miss me when I left for college. It was a sweet gesture, but...Duct Tape? Seriously?

A calendar from 1999. Given to me in 2003... the idea was cute. He had written important dates on it and little messages about the times we spent together. Too bad I was dating someone else in 1999 and had considered him just a friend that year. He claimed it was because he realized he liked me that year. I think it was really because he found it at the bottom of his closet and didn't want to ruin his cool 2003 Castles of the World one.

A Care Bear. Now, I loved Care Bears when I was younger. I had one video tape of it at my grandparents' house and it was the only thing I was allowed to watch. But this one was given to me when I was 20 years old. And it was Bedtime Bear. Did he think I was afraid of the dark?

A piece of paper with the age-old question "do you like me? Check yes or no" written on it. It made me laugh when he passed it to me. It also got me reprimanded for laughing in the middle of class.

A Denny's menu. We were kinda dating but hiding it from everyone because of stupid high-school drama. We would meet up late at night at a Denny's far from our houses just so no one would see us together. After a few months of this, we decided to go back to being just friends. We made this decision at Denny's, and he stole 2 menus for us to keep as reminders of our time together, since there were no messages, photos, zilch. In case you're wondering, not much has changed on the Denny's menu since then.

A Transformer. The guy thought that being a child of the 80's, I'd go ga-ga over it. I wasn't allowed to watch tv as a kid. So...thanks for the weird car robot thing. It's...different.

A post card sent to me when he was on vacation in a different state. The post card was of an ugly naked cowboy in a bathtub. Classy.

An empty plastic container. It once held my 2 favorite flavors of Jelly Belly jelly beans, but had long been eaten. And written in tiny, perfect script around the outside was a poem he wrote me. First line - "Dear Sara, you're so fair-a."

So, when you compare some of these things to the cute things my dear hubby gives me, you can understand why I felt no need to keep the mementos. Although, one of my favorite things that Dan has ever given me is a china hutch. Maybe my tastes have changed.