Treasured Memories

Years ago, when I was still with my toxic ex, we had taken many photos together and they would be posted on social media. After I walked away, or more so ran away, from him, I deleted the photos as they were haunting memories and I wanted nothing to remind me of him.

Since then, I’ve never been one to take it pictures with those I date or even “friends” that I’d like to date. The pain of having to explain why someone suddenly disappears from your profile is something that makes me hesitant to create memorabilia.

Branding Myself

In my vanilla little life, I’m not shy about letting the world see me. My social media accounts are filled with photos and videos, documenting portions of my life. The vanilla life I lead isn’t all that exciting, but I guess the vanilla world finds that inspiring. I struggle with illness and so I share about that aspect of my life and what I’m doing to fight those illnesses. I guess it makes me look like a badass.

My career has nothing to do with the way I brand myself. In fact, who I am on social media is almost an alter ego. I’ve used social media platforms as a digital photo album and in that respect, I’ve branded myself as a health nut in a sense.

There is nothing about relationships or sex on my vanilla profiles and I like to keep it that way. It’s clean, but apparently, I’m more popular as a vanilla person than I am in the sex blogging world. But the moments I share with the vanilla world are the ones to be treasured. I’m proud of my fight and I’m proud of the progress I’ve made.

A Dramatic Pose

Even though lover and I have been dating for a while, we have no photos together. We make no reference to each other on social media.

My friends would tell me, “You should be with a guy who wants to show you off.” But I have to disagree with that. People tend to post only the good parts of their life on social media. It tends to be “fake news.” They omit all the ugly parts of life for more likes, comments or views.

So couples who look happy on Instagram are probably not too happy behind closed doors. Couples who have to constantly post selfies of themselves tend be insecure in their relationship and need validation from outsiders to be happy. And this is not the case with lover and I. We don’t need the world to see that we can’t keep our hands off each other.

Photographic Memory

Though lover and I don’t have photos together, we do have memories shared. I remember each time we’re together and the highlights of our relationship are stored visually in my brain. When I miss him, I can collect that memory and play it back in my head. I have a mental photo album constructed in my brain.

The day his kid walked in on us having sex definitely deserves an album of its own. It was the day our relationship changed from me being a random girl in his bed to me being his girl.

A page is bookmarked for the day he opened up to me about depression. It was the first time he was vulnerable with me and it felt like he was finally starting to trust me. What he shared was dark, but it also warmed my heart because it showed me how much I meant to him.

Even our big fights are stored in my brain. It’s not taking up storage space so that I can bring it up or even dwell on it, but it signifies that we do in fact fight sometimes and we’re not in the honeymoon phase anymore. And along with those big fights are how we made up and how we learned to communicate with each other a bit better.

There are days when we just lie in bed and reminisce on things. We’ll say, “Remember that time when we…” We’ll share some laughs thinking back on the time we’ve spent together.

Though we haven’t filled an album full of photos together, we have this memories embedded in our heads and engraved on our hearts.

sass c.

Image from Unsplash