So in the last few days I've been going through old pictures in photo albums just to see what kinds of pictures I can scan and put on facebook of me as a kid with my family.  Well as I was looking through them, I found old pictures of me and my ex...a lot of them.  My boyfriend and I were discussing this tonight because I mentioned that I found them.  At first he was upset that I kept them, thinking that I must have some fear of letting these pictures go.  But when I explained why I can't throw them away, he understood and we're okay now.

The reason I can't throw these pictures away is because they document a large part of my life.  Not only that, but I grew and changed so much in that period (of four years roughly) that each set of photos gives me a very vivid window into my emotions at that time: when I first starting hanging out with my ex, when I fell in love with him, when I get frustrated with him, when I hated the way he reacted to my mom, etc.  I have no feelings of regret, and I definitely don't look at those pictures with nostalgic awe or longing; I simply just can't burn them because they show me such a personal view into that part of my life.

Now, don't get me wrong, I don't go looking through these pictures frequently.  In fact, this is the first time I've seen them since we broke up over two years ago.  I would honestly be just fine putting them in a box and shoving it under my bed or in the basement to collect dust.  But I just don't want to get rid of them completely.  And it wouldn't really bother me if I knew my boyfriend had an old box of pictures with exes if he stowed it away.

What do you think? Do you keep pictures of your exes, or do you burn them when the relationship ends?