It Can Be Hard to Purge When You Don't Trust Your Own Motives

This is a locket that my high school boyfriend gave to me when I was about 17.

I have been meaning to get rid of it for years. It sits in the bottom drawer of my jewelry box, year after year after year, and I would like to not own it anymore.

The problem is why?

On the purely practical level, I know that I will never wear this locket again. It simply takes up space, and taking up space is anathema to minimalism.

But I worry that I want to get rid of it for less neutral reasons.

The relationship that this piece of jewelry commemorates left me feeling unworthy, less than, and broken. For many many years, I laid the blame for those feelings on the boy who gave me this locket. And I don't doubt that he played a part in it, as did I, as did our youth, as did many other factors that contributed to our broken hearts.

But for years, I've held onto his blameworthiness.

Last year, my mother and I were sorting through my jewelry to find something appropriate for me to wear for BB's bris. We came across the locket, and as I do whenever I remember its presence, I opened it up and looked at the engraving and the pictures of the two children inside.

"He really did love you," Mom remarked.

I closed up the locket and thrust it back in the drawer.

The fact that he loved me doesn't fit neatly into my narrative of blame. It's a lot harder to hold onto anger when I remember something so sweet as teenager's gold locket.

And I'm afraid that's the real reason I would like to divest myself of this particular part of my history.

So, I have taken a picture and written here about my conflicting emotions. If I need reminding of the fact that all history is complicated, particularly personal history, I can return to this blog post and remember the sweetness that lay behind all the anger that I held onto for more years than were probably necessary.

Even if I am purging this piece of jewelry for the wrong reasons, I am hereby taking responsibility for remembering.

I have also decided to hide the locket somewhere for a random stranger to find. It's an entire story in itself (not unlike Ernest Hemingway's much-more-tragic never worn baby shoes), and I would hate for someone to miss out on the unexpected joy of creating a back story for a mysterious find.

It feels good to let go.