This Shirt is Not “Yours” Anymore
BY Kyd Kacani
When you are finally done crying into her shirt or wearing his bracelet, what do we do with their stuff? It can feel like they’re still in the room with you, just knowing that the shirt he wore every day is under your bed, trying its best to collect dust to no avail. If you don’t send it back, what becomes of these items?
Heartbreak feels like time stands still, but these artifacts reveal that life goes on.
This was first love. Hindsight is always 20/20, but it needs to be. You learn a lot from your first, and you take that with you all your life, as much as you want to forget. Most importantly, you learn the most about yourself. That flannel belonged to a boy that gave it to another boy that loved him and now it lives in a closet with all their Polaroid photos in the left breast pocket, closest to the heart. Xoxo
There is something so painful about knowing what is right because you wish you didn’t. When love crumbles down, it’s hard to see anything but the rubble of your relationship. It’s important to remember the things in your life that relationship added because you will always gain more. You never lose anything that wasn’t yours.
Ownership. What ghosts live in your closet only are there because of the memories you attach to them. So, if it really bothers you, attach more memories! Make new ones and own that guitar, as weird as it feels in the hands of another. That item was theirs, is yours, and in the spirit of ready-made art, it’s just a guitar.
When you hold on to a person so hard because you don’t want them to go, they become a memory of the person that is today. No one stays the same, everything changes in little paces, including you.
Listening to yourself. The questions you’ll ask your friends on what you should do always have a predetermined answer in your own head; just be brave enough to listen. Sometimes, we find out the hard and long way, but it will bring you so much closer to yourself along the way. Revel in the relief.
I think the best part about fashion trends is that things fall out of trend. So, wear that sweater you depersonalize and you wear it for a while because it’s only cute for so long.