There’s a great feeling when you finally throw out something that is broken.
Recently, I took a look at the top shelf in my kitchen. Sitting up there since I moved in was my food processor. It has been broken for about three years. At some point, it ceased to have multiple speeds and only went into superfastohmygodwhatfreshhellisthis when I turned it on. It was out of its warranty period, but I thought, maybe, I could take it to a repair place and they could fix it. I mean, it had so many attachments, could potentially make my life easier and I had so many recipes I used to use it with! Just the memory of those perfectly sliced vegetables, that cheese grated in the blink of an eye, and meatloaf mixed in seconds was enough to convince me I couldn’t throw it away. Never mind that the last thing I tried to use it on turned into liquified mush and un-processed chunks and was completely inedible. Never mind that someone else had used it to pulp recycled paper and the blades were dulled beyond repair. Never mind that it just. Didn’t. Work. Never mind that I had found something else to do the same job (maybe not as well, but still serviceably and better in other ways).
So there I was, standing in my kitchen staring up at my food processor. And I thought of Boyfriend. Well, until recently, he was my boyfriend. We broke up. More to the point, I broke up with him. Yet I still wanted him in my life. But I didn’t really. I mean, I wanted the person I thought he was. But he was broken. He had hurt me very badly, and very severely damaged my trust to a point beyond repair. But I wanted to keep him on a shelf, until he somehow proved to me that he wasn’t broken. That he could be repaired. That he really was the person I thought he was, somewhere under the cowardice, the deceit, and the selfishness, there was someone who actually cared about me and who I could trust to be open with me. But then I thought, what could he do? Was there really anything that could fix things? And did I really want to put the effort into it, especially when every time I saw his face or a picture of his face, I was having panic attacks? When I had already lost over 10 lbs from the stress and anxiety of trying to work things out?
Was I ever going to take that stupid broken food processor to the repair place?
No.
And so, I took it down off the shelf and chucked it into the skip, along with all the attachments.
Ex-boyfriend is still friends on FaceBook, but he’s no longer in my news feed and I don’t see us being friends in real-life.
And I sleep better now. And I’m eating again. And there is a place on my shelf for something better.
Poly Momma 
Great post.
This really resonates with me. I pride myself on being able to break up amicably. but the last break-up I went through was anything but amicable. We tried. We tried to listen to each other, to understand one another. He even came to visit and we knew we still felt love for one another. but some things are too precious to just tape back together to try again. After a few months of hurting over everything he was posting, over every response that was missing from my life, over the patterns of betrayal and hurt being thrown in my face, I was just done. Completely done. I love him and value what he brought to my life, but this relationship couldn’t be repaired. Not at this stage. Wonderful post!
Thanks for sharing. It’s nice that I’m not alone. I’m glad you were able to salvage at least some good memories. My memories are all tainted with the fact that he was lying to me the whole time. I can’t salvage anything positive from the experience, at least anything that makes me feel the least bit good about my time with him. However, I have taken away a great deal more self respect, and the lesson to never trust someone who doesn’t want to share anything about themselves with me.
And today I blocked him. And he finally took notice. Too bad it’s too late. I don’t have time for cowards. Or liars. Or antisocial personality disorders. I think I deserve a lot better than that.
[…] peoples’ blogs about breakups. Since I probably won’t do anything more harsh than my breakup-via-blog-post that I already did, here are a couple of great posts on other people’s […]