Loss

He saves everything. The proud way his parents looked at him when he took his first steps. His school uniform, the notes he wrote to others in class while the teacher wasn’t looking. That box filled with old photographs, the sweater that belonged to his brother, his first love letter, the locket and the secret that it held. Later, records of every business card he ever received, unfinished plans, old formulas, proposals, even if they never saw the light of day.

She throws everything out. She doesn’t take pictures, and what others take she rarely looks at. She gives books away after reading them, scribbles in notebooks she disposes of once the pages are full. His past is his treasure. Her life is a strong, clear line that does not look back and is scrubbed clean of the memories he finds solace in replaying before falling asleep. She has difficulty keeping friends. She does not attach meaning to objects; favors clean surfaces and empty spaces over buying a quilt that will remind her of that trip she took, back when everything was different to the way things are now. She does not believe in souvenirs. 

They are the same, you see. He, terrified of losing something that was once his, if only for a moment, holds on to everything; she, convinced she can’t lose what she doesn’t have, holds on to nothing.