I was in the basement of my apartment tonight, going through some boxes.

It's a lovely place. I painted the front of the double parlor in warm coffee-with-milk and and the back of the double parlor in coffee-with-cream. He has an office downstairs, his stuff still in boxes from moving in, and I have an office upstairs, my stuff getting back into boxes to move out. 

When I moved in here, six months ago, I moved out of my own apartment, where I'd lived, alone, for the past year.  I winnowed my stuff down the best I could; I got rid of my beloved microwave, circa 1979. I got rid of my old computer and boxes and boxes of paperwork. I donated most of my clothes. 

When I was going through the stuff in my old apartment, I came across a box of love letters, from my first relationship. As I dug through other boxes- boxes that had gone from my parents house to a storage space to my first apartment back to another storage space, unopened - I found more.

I'd forgotten these letters existed. I looked at them for a second, and began to throw them away. Dozens of letters and cards, shoved in the trash. I felt bold. I felt sensible. I felt like this was the mature thing to do. It wasn't out of any sense of loyalty to the current boyfriend, thinking that he shouldn't have to live with love letters from the old one. It wasn't out of loyalty to the old boyfriend, thinking that he wouldn't like it if anyone came across these letters.

It was out of loyalty to the old me.

My first relationship was complicated. Actually, bizarre. Unusual. Maybe notable. None of my relationships have ever been normal. They've all been worthy of anecdote. They've all had strange enough circumstances to sound like lies, when retold.

This one...was melodramatic. Star-crossed lovers, etc. Threats of violence. East meets west. An actual car chase. Exile. International intrigue. FBI questioning. At the end, a love triangle, on both sides. 

In the middle, though, during the period I'll call exile, there were letters. I'd forgotten that summer, when I was waiting for college, and he was far away. It takes four days for a letter to reach London from my city. This was a pleasant surprise. 

When you are eighteen, and already vulnerable to that kind of thinking - this is all terribly romantic. And inconvenient and horrible and painful and melodramatic, but romantic. It was heart-in-the-throat, sleepless night, anything for another five minutes together type stuff. 

We didn't know if he would be able to get letters from me, but he was fairly certain that he'd be able to send some to me. The last time I saw him before he had to go, I gave him sort of a diary. Each page was a letter to him. I even put a lock of my hair in the binding. He would have letters from me, then, if he saved the book up and did not read too fast. And I would get my letters from him.

And I did. 

It was a bitter, bitter, bitter, sweet summer. Later, the thing just went bad. He'd been the one who risked and lost; and my life had gone on, as it had always been planned. He began to take it out on me. Things went straight flat bitter between us, overextracted and thin, like coffee brewed from too fine a grind. 

If, today, I began to see someone, and after eight weeks they were given the choice to voluntarily cut off all contact with me, or, leave the country, their job, their family, their plans, and give up all their savings - I'd stop seeing them. It's not that I'd make the choice for them; it's that I can't be the alternate option to someone's entire life. 

I'm not worth it. I'm cute, I'm funny. I'm loyal, and I'll bake you a pie for any damned reason, but I don't even want to be the kind of girl that you miss a TV show for.

And after eight weeks...Are you kidding? Eight weeks? I've got ice cream in my freezer that's been there longer. I'll eat eggs that far beyond their expiration date.  And it's not worth it.

I am not a romantic anymore. Barely a shred remains. If you don't believe me, read my feelings/poop post. I'm actually, even, a little bit mean to romantics. Again, feelings, poop. 

And that's why I tried to throw the letters away.  I have become cynical, clear-eyed, and pragmatic. I am unsympathetic to people like the person I was when I recieved those letters. I am a half step away from being unsympathetic to the person I was when I received those letters.  The single shred of romantic left in me, at that moment, felt a surge of loyalty to the earnest naive version of me, ten years ago - and decided to protect that earlier me.

To save that earlier me from my own derision, I threw the letters away. The night before the move was trash night. I was at my parents' house, drinking wine with my mother, talking about books. Talking about life. Talking about my sister (currently the family's only romantic). 

Suddenly, I wanted to save the letters. I didn't know why, but I needed to save them.  I was a different person now, true, than I was then. But I thougt that I could trust myself, not to laugh at or degrade the girl I was, and the time that was, that strange summer. Maybe I was at the apogee of my cynicism - the top of the ferris wheel.

So I ran, wine-drunk, home. And I sorted through the trash, and I saved as many as I could.

Today, I found the letters again. 

Today,  I am more cynical right now than I have ever been. I am more guarded. If six months ago, I was an armadillo, today I am a tortoise. By next year, I'll be coral.

One would think that refreshing my recollection of that time would soften my shell. (Now, am I a crab? Hmm. Female crabs are softshelled when it is time to mate.  Wonder what that means. Mixing metaphors hurts. Lucky I am a lawthing and not a writingthing. Or, thank god, a biologything.)

Opposite, actually. Holding an envelope in my hands, a plain white business envelope, with child-like blue ballpoint drawings of flowers and vines and airplanes, I was angry. Jealous. I don't know why, but the feeling was almost like being offended.

I was angry that she believed that it was real; I was angry that she couldn't tell me whether it was possible that what was written and what I barely remember was true; I was angry that she burned through all that high-quality naivete on something so attenuated that turned out so badly. I was angry that she couldn't have seen what was coming. 

 I cannot see the sweetness of the boy who wrote and the girl who read; I cannot believe that he meant what he said and she believed it, although I remember being her, and believing it. I wish I could go back and shake her  until she didn't.

I wish I could go back and give her my cynicism, my shell, and my hindsight.  And in return, all I'd ask, would be to steal back just about a quarter of her idiocy. I'd stockpile it, for when feelings come back into fashion.