pathologically nostalgic

This applies to you.  And it always applies to me.

I do not let go. I am pathologically nostalgic, and for that reason, I am a pack rat of memory-related items.   In the way that I’ve not forgotten what it feels like to love someone, I find it hard to throw away a 6-year-old piece of paper on which hearts were scribbled around our names.  It’s really kind of pathetic.

I’ve kept every day planner I’ve had since early high school — so I can remember what I did that day, and the next. This is the day he and I first talked. This is the night I kissed him on my living room couch. This is when we went to prom.

I have a little box of old movie tickets.  Can you remember how he looked in the dim twilight of the theatre?  During the funny part, when our eyes met. What movie was it? I know, because I still have that ticket.

There’s a flattened flower that sits on my desk today. It’s from the summer afternoon I was standing outside of a leasing office near Washington Square Park. I waited for him on the stoop of the brownstone. A small white flower. I picked it up from a crack in the sidewalk cement, and slid the tiny daisy — a wildflower growing inside something damaged — over my ear. I was happy that day, and I wanted to keep that.

To top it off, I am a hopeless lover. When I love, I love fully. When I love fully, I never stop loving. When I never stop loving, I keep everything.  When I keep everything, I lose space for other things.

I’m growing older and taking new lessons in so quickly.  Every day, I add something to the collection, but I’m losing patience with the past.  Its clutter clogs renewal.  Its weight holds me down.  I’m starving for my spring.  Maybe it’s time to throw out the day planners.  Even so, I bet I won’t.