What Would You Put on Display At the Museum Of Broken Relationships?
Posted by: Ami Angelowicz
Filed in:
relationships
4:20PM, Friday August 28th 2009
At this point in my life, I have enough memorabilia from broken relationships to fill an entire museum. As a writer, I tend to heal after a breakup by writing about it—helps me understand what went wrong. But there aren’t always words to express how painful, sad, annoying, or existentially confusing a breakup can be. And what about the physical, tangible objects left behind—the ones that you come across every so often in the garage that make you laugh, cry, or both. So, after hearing about some of the awesome projects at the Museum of Broken Relationships, a conceptual art museum in Croatia that attempts to create a space of “secure memory” and a safe place to get rid of “controversial objects” that trigger momentarily “undesirable” emotions, I started rummaging through some of my old broken-relationship booty to see what kind of project I could make. Here are my top 10 items.
I won’t bore you with the stories. What I’m really curious about is this: What would you donate to the museum?
TheFrisky.com is part of the Turner Sports and Entertainment Digital Network
Coral
wrote on August 28 2009 @ 03:28 pm: [report]
Hmm.
My top 3 items are:
-a pair of diamond and pearl earrings
-a blown glass vase
-an old-fashioned stuffed teddy bear
lawyrgrl
wrote on August 28 2009 @ 03:48 pm: [report]
What a great concept! I have half an adult lifetime of accumulated detritus that I can’t bear to throw away but I don’t want to keep. I am going to make a donation.
Kathls
wrote on August 28 2009 @ 04:03 pm: [report]
- a Care Bear (Friendship Bear)
- score card from a game of mini golf
- mixed cd, concert tix, fortune cookies, etc.
- poems written by exes, v-day cards, dried roses
—and—
I would include this one if I still had it, but because I believe in Karma, I recently mailed back an ex’s certificate of baptism. Not even sure how I ended up with that in the first place
Lynn
wrote on August 28 2009 @ 04:11 pm: [report]
-a stuffed Larry the Cucumber
-a picture book of wolves
-white gold hoops
-that white and pink striped dress I can’t even fit into anymore
-and that vintage 70s men’s shirt I haven’t worn in years
-cross necklace
I had a teddy bear that I knew a guy had given to me for Valentine’s Day one year, but for the life of me I could not remember which ex gave it to me. I eventually gave it to Goodwill (I know my dog would have had fun with it, and someone else it probably just buying it for their dog to tear apart, but I didn’t want to watch). The weird thing is, even though I wasn’t sure which ex gave it to me, I still had a hard time giving it away.
LunaLena
wrote on August 28 2009 @ 04:34 pm: [report]
After one relationship failed spectacularly, I gave away all the stuffed animals to a children’s charity (he always gave me teddy bears because I like them) and donated the rest to Goodwill, but if I still had them…
- a silver/cubic zirconia promise ring
- a malachite rolling pin that I touched in a store once, and he bought for me (even after I said several times that I didn’t want it, I just thought it was pretty) after I broke up with him, in an attempt to win me back
- a box of assorted chocolate and candy, bought at random with no regards to my personal tastes, because he thought that if it had sugar in it, I would like it.
likeOMGkbye
wrote on August 28 2009 @ 04:36 pm: [report]
-A Build-a-Bear in a tutu
-A ring w/ some kind of small purple stone
-Other various stuffed animals
I want to pawn off the ring, and I just feel bad getting rid of the build-a-bear cuz those things are expensive, and well, it is in a tutu…
Shiny Objects
wrote on August 28 2009 @ 05:39 pm: [report]
- a restraining order
- his mommy issues
- my PTSD from being stalked by the psycho
- Years of my life feeling stuck that were basically wasted…
sesl
wrote on August 28 2009 @ 08:32 pm: [report]
I still have things from previous relationship I probably shouldn’t have kept, but like someone else posted, it’s hard for me to just get rid of them. With that said, I’d probably have to give away
-a ring my high school boyfriend gave me
-a vase that some very unexpected flowers arrived in
-a stuffed animal that says ‘I Love You’ when squeezed.
Now if I could just get my current boyfriend to get rid of a few old things…
kmatter
wrote on August 28 2009 @ 09:28 pm: [report]
-bunches of old love letters (they were sweet, and i feel bad throwing them away)
-an old sweatshirt that i can’t seem to get rid of cuz it’s SO comfy
-about a zillion mixed cd’s (from when i was going thru this heavy metal stage and i can’t stand them anymore)
-all the journals i kept during those relationships…
lots of weird stuff. it’s usually handwritten kinda things, cuz i don’t like people to buy stuff for me.
hnasty
wrote on August 28 2009 @ 10:08 pm: [report]
I’m good about getting rid of the stuff that is particularly emotionally volatile. There’s something terrifyingly liberating about seeing the guy at goodwill take the stuff away and mix it in with the old furniture and kids clothes. It helps to have someone else physically take it off my hands.
lewomack
wrote on August 28 2009 @ 10:33 pm: [report]
Top 3:
1. A Simpsons mini arcade basketball
2. Hand drawn card from valentine’s day… that my bf at the time had someone’s else draw
3. Dance pictures
Vitally_Florin
wrote on August 28 2009 @ 10:51 pm: [report]
1. The songs he wrote in junior high on tape
2. The songs he wrote in high school on disc
3. A piece of the Berlin wall
cbloon
wrote on August 29 2009 @ 10:06 am: [report]
A birthday card that says “I love us.”
River
wrote on August 29 2009 @ 10:25 am: [report]
What I gave up to him:
Scores of music
A flat screen HD television we bought as a household
An engagement ring
My keys to our flat
Several years of my life
What I kept:
His alto sax (that he never plays and that I do… quite a bit)
His real book
The iMac that we purchased as a household
My bed
My dignity and freedom.
I caught my ex fiance cheating on me in the bed I brought to our apartment after only a few weeks of being apart (I was away for a month on a job). I took my possessions and moved to Europe. Tell you one thing—I’ve never looked back! :D
majicksand
wrote on August 29 2009 @ 12:34 pm: [report]
@cbloon: That’s the saddest thing I’ve heard all day.
I honestly don’t think Ive ever gotten rid of anything because it came from an ex. Most of the gifts I’ve gotten have been either useful or just something I really like. I guess I’m too pragmatic to give them up because the guy they came from is no longer around. Not very romantic I know, but I can’t help it.
If I had to give away a few things…
1. a book that an ex inscribed for Valentine’s one year (but it’s a good book and a first edition!)
2. teddy bear that came with the box of Godiva (it’s fully poseable and my kid loves it)
3. engagement ring from my first husband (it’s an emerald, ‘nuff said)
rainytown
wrote on August 30 2009 @ 12:37 am: [report]
black chanel sunglasses? i would totally take that off your hands for you. in fact, instead of a museum, a place or site or something where people could trade their OFBRs for the OFBRs of others would be pretty cool
bjoontheupside
wrote on August 30 2009 @ 09:03 am: [report]
A picture that we took while vacationing in Maine together of a lighthouse on the shore.
marchimark
wrote on August 30 2009 @ 04:33 pm: [report]
The most comfortable pajama pants in the world. I’m not giving those suckers up, either. Some would say I stole them. I would say I kept quiet as to their whereabouts when my ex was searching for them.
They didn’t want him anyway.
ootie
wrote on August 31 2009 @ 08:48 am: [report]
My boyfriend and I broke up for a few months earlier this year, and I threw out all the super cute, sentimental things he gave me. Now I’m bummed that I don’t have them anymore. I’m glad I kept some things though, like the paintings he’s done of/for me and some pajama pants he made me that say “ootie” on the butt.
bogart4017
wrote on August 31 2009 @ 01:52 pm: [report]
a hersheys chocolate kiss.
sportzriter13
wrote on September 1 2009 @ 01:50 pm: [report]
*a huge teal bowtie from a production of “the wizard of oz” that has the following messages written on it:
Will you marry me when we are old enough?
I luv you Jessica, signed (name) “the wiz” (look at the strap)
Go BEARS!
*ring that ex-fiance used to propose (my ring, by the way; he never bothered to get one)
*green guitar pick from the guy who showed me why I shouldn’t be engaged at the age of 16, and for whom I left my fiancee.
bearclover
wrote on September 12 2009 @ 07:21 pm: [report]
I’m not really a roses and chocolate kind of woman and most of my gifts are practical things that I actually use. However, there are momentos that I collected of times spent together:
* a medium sized vase of wild turkey tail feathers and a bud vase full of bluejay tail feathers collected over the course of countless hikes together
* A Flamingo feather from one of the birds in the garden at the Flamingo casino in Las Vegas during a vacation
* Two dozen red roses made out of (you guessed it) feathers that he gave me for Valentines Day