“I think it’s time for you to throw those out.”

It hasn’t been that long, really, since he left for California (god. that’s such a cliche, isn’t it?) and yet it’s been months, maybe even a year, since these feelings started building up inside me. Now that I can say it— “my ex”— I can publicly mourn. Show my sorrow and my regret to the world, rather than stow it away inside me and stew over how wrong it all felt.

But I made those poms— every single one by hand. I sat on planes, in front of movies, alone in an apartment in Tennessee, with friends in Indiana, at photoshoots in LA, twisting and snipping and perfecting these poms. It would be an extreme exaggeration to say I poured my sweat and blood and tears into them, but for drama’s sake (ah, hindsight), I did.

And the colors— I love those colors. Red and teal, yellow and gray— I’d decorate my entire house in those tones. I’m that girl who always proudly declared red my “favorite color”— no pink for me. Am I allowed to still love those colors? Or am I banished to a life of orange, purples— heaven forbid— green? Despite what they represented (a failed union, a deception of my soul), I’m still willing to embrace this bright and cheery color scheme. “A vintage Mexican fiesta”… Should “fiesta” no longer be in my vocabulary?

“I’ll make more,” I replied. “I have more yarn and it’s fun for me… I’ll empty these out and fill it up again with new poms.”

But it’s been days… and the poms are still there. The sad moments— and there were moments where my heart seized up, the sobs escaped without warning, and I put him on a pedestal— are quieting down. Thinking of him makes me feel numb; indifference— that familiar feeling that marked our last few months living under the same roof. At first, I thought seeing him again would be unbearable; now, I know it will feel icky and my heart will sink, but I will get through it and keep plunging on forward.

Inevitably, every remnant of our time together will be purged— but must my poms face a lonely life of wastebins and landfills because for one brief second, they caught the shimmer of string lights and laughter, pelting us like hail and sliding around the dance floor like discarded clown noses and crumpled fall leaves.