Secure Empty Trash.
image borrowed from PetitInvention
I’ve always held a great respect for tenure. In fact, my life is filled with positions that are held for long periods of time: my family I’ve had all my life; my real friends are at least a decade old; exes last at the very least 9 months (or at least long enough to get someone pregnant); careers are several years in the making; even crushes (the palpable ones at least), I’ve kept for more than 365 days, and so on. The same thing goes for things I hold in great value — my grade school exams, the first notebook I bought in Europe, pens I got on sale during high school, and love letters I received from relationships of yore (read: 1990) — all these are still stored in a locked place in my house waiting for the day I decide to re-file them, or finally throw them away.
So you see, it was quite discomforting to find out that, one night, while checking your email, someone requested to change their relationship status with you online, on Multiply. No, it’s not even about whether things needed to be changed, but more because this someone reminded you of things you’d started to forget.
It is not easy for someone like me to change things I find comfortable with in my life, especially for someone as obsessive-compulsive as I am. I like keeping things just the way they are; and if they aren’t, then I go out of my way to bringing them back to the status quo or fixing them, whatever of the two is required. Hence, True Value and Ace Hardware are listed on top of my favorite shops. So, I hope you understand my trepidation when I was confronted with the reality that I had something that I could not make normal or fix. Something I had to face. Something I had completely lost forever. It was extremely disconcerting to realize this truth when all this time, all you could think about was not thinking about it at all. And there it was, presenting itself to you unscheduled, un-retouched, unapologetic, in all its naked ugliness.
So what is one to do? You thank God for the wonders of technology, and that computer problems are diagnosed either by reinstalling or by trashing. And though I have never been one to send relationships down the bin, I had no choice but to cease whatever was needed to be terminated. No second thoughts, no second chances. No more. And for that reason, I mindfully drag names into the can and empty my trash for good.
The worst part about holding on is thinking that one day, there still might be some use to the one thing you know is completely useless. Yes, hope. It’s the one big road block you encounter from finally moving on. I’m hoping it’s the last, so that I can start building new, tenable relationships, and not constantly throwing things down the drain.