Know your boundaries. Do not ever let someone make you feel uncomfortable or unwanted. Putting yourself in potentially damaging situations can not be any good for you. Stand your ground and walk away.

We all hold on to these things much longer than is logical, but we just can't get ourselves to throw them out.  It's the box hidden away in some closet or under your bed that you look at only when you stumble upon it by accident.  You ponder whether or not you should throw it out, until you get a headache and end up putting it back where you found it.  Letters, gifts, scrapbooks, and stuffed animals all there to remind you of something special that existed once in your past.  

There's something about these physical items that is so much more meaningful than e-mails, IM's, and texts.  To see someone's handwriting, artwork, or to hold an actual photograph feels as if you've captured the essence of that person in that moment. 

I don't keep these things just to reminisce about this other person that was once the most important thing to me.  Oddly enough, I keep them because it reminds me of what kind of person I used to be.  It helps me remember who I was and where I've been.  Sometimes we forget who we are.  Our own memories will fail us as time continues to roll by, so this window into the past is the most honest way to remember who we were to someone else.  What kind of boyfriend was I when I was 15?  18?  20?  22?
 
So I keep these letters now, these scrapbooks that happen to be exactly the same (apparently you all shop at the same arts and crafts store), these pictures, these little doodles you ripped out of your spiral notebook, and the story you wrote of "How we fell in love", because now I know who I am and who I want to be for the next person I share a moment in time with.    

People forget things over time, and the drama of today won't be remembered tomorrow.