Love's Ritual Lost

CALL ME OLD fashioned, hopeless romantic, whimsy fool... whatever.

I'm a shameless, certified-genuine 24-carat sentimentalist. ^-^

The death of letters sent me hurtling down memory lane. This is one of love's dying rituals. [more in later entries if/when nostalgia strikes]

Remember your first love letter?

Mine was covered in hearts and read “I love you a lot”. Receiving it felt like being given the sweetest, most tender kiss and a big bear hug all at once. I will never forget that beautiful day I walked on clouds.

Call it a squirrelling instinct. Or a plain inclination to hoard.

I never throw away love letters, even long after love's died. I had every single one stuffed away in one of several old, beat-up shoeboxes. My shoe-box memories - just like those you see in those sappy, cheesy, weepy old melodramas. Letters, photos, cards, scribbled notes, faded crepe-paper and satin ribbons, pressed flowers, movie tickets, bus tickets, … every single spiece and shred of my treasured sweetheart memories...

There was one exception.

Once, in a moment of impulse, I gathered all the letters of someone whom I had loved longer than he loved me, and burned them. They made a lovely fire, burning brightly as the love they once declared with such passion. My 24-carat unrequited-love response, no less.

And the rest of the mushy stash?

Well, like every good melodrama must also have its tragedy. Some years ago, an army of termites decided to hold this great feast of love artefacts and memorablia in celebration of my romantic life. In silencio (befitting the time-honored rituals of courtship) they devoured my entire collection of delectable love prose, perfumed cards and chocolate candy wrappers... practically my entire romantic history was transformed into a small mountain of termite dung. What little else there is left of those memories languishes in the misty corners of my mind, slowly dimming with age.

And what of the latter day ones? you ask. Those Internet-era love letters?

Well, where else would they be? In my digital shoebox of course!

Time is a gentle thief of innocence. Slowly but surely my sentimentality has acquired a sharp pragmatic edge. I now have dead mailboxes for the dull and unpromising stuff: I'd trashed a slew of e-mails from brief dating scenarios. I think I haven't yet talked myself into purging the digital records of the few I must have subconciously categorised as brighter passions. And there are two dozen mails I still can't bring myself to zap into cyber-oblivion. These, I must "never let the daylight in upon magic". These are my priceless treasures. For though they cannot stand the light of day, they fill me with untold happiness. They keep me serenely confident in myself and.. nostalgic. They are proof of my love-ability, my loveliness, my desirability.

They are indisputable proof of the magical power of the writen word.

Oh, by the way, what about yours? Your proof of your power to attract, charm and beguile? ^-^

well, lest you forgot...

*wink*

With love
percolator :)