Old Lovers

"...so, are you going to carry that baggage around with you the rest of your life?"
"You talking to me? Love 'em and leave 'em Batty?"

What to do with those 'precious things' that are the mementoes and memories of your previous lovers? "Remember old lovers and keep them holy" - they aren't that precious! Yet...they linger, in the shadows of your mind, hopping out at the most inopportune times. The story of the guy who always dated girls with the same name (so he would never call out the wrong one in the height of ecstasy), may not be entirely apocryphal. And those photos! And all the gifts! And the clothes that you wore that special night! Just chuck them all? Why not? Are you going to sit and fondle them in your loneliness and decrepitude?

Still...that picture of her at 19 is pretty adorable. I wonder if she still has that book published in 1820 that I gave her. Oh, I give up! I'm just an old fool, and old fools never learn. Now where is my hankie?