In a small box, tucked away behind a deflated blow-up bed, in a dresser whose doors were dust lined along the crevasses, were all the secret keepsakes that everyone agreed were weird for me to hold on to.

My mother was a hoarder. She held on to everything like a dysfunctional dragon’s treasure. When the box room became inaccessible, her things had spilled out into the house. I was not like my mother, I thought. Yet I held onto this box of strange things.

Among my shameful collection was a plastic tub with one shrivelled, discoloured white chocolate mouse; I hoped was once a sweet gesture to a girl I might still have love for today. I’ve been married and divorced since then.

I had dropped the mouse at a party in our teens, back when I was athletic, more confident, and not at all a ‘shambles’. I joked at offering it to her, knowing she saw me drop it. I kept it, offering it every time we reconnected. Years could pass between visits, and the girl now lived halfway around the world, married.

After my divorce, and another chance reconnection, we had gotten close again, and I remembered my love for her. She was a good person, slightly broken, but strong. I think the attraction was mutual, but I sabotaged my chances intentionally. I couldn’t subject her to my sorry state and in an ego power play, ‘let her be free of me’, whatever that means.

A metal tin, the most prized possession from my marriage, not my ring, still makes me swell up with joy, and bittersweet sadness. Inside were little black cards, each with a message from my friends, family, co-workers and wife, telling me why they loved me.

It was the sweetest, kindest thing anyone had ever done for me. It was the perfect Christmas gift. Though not expensive or luxurious, my once-wife had made it with sincere love and care, more precious to me than anything money could buy. If I ever open the now dented tin and read the cards to myself; I cry loud and hard.

I felt both happiness and each betrayal as I tucked the messages, one by one, to the back of the pile. If I ever killed myself, I thought, they would find me in a pile of black cards, beside that battered tin, having suffered through a deserved, lonely death.

I was a romantic and held onto sentiment deep inside myself. My entire life others, through words and actions, conveyed the message, emotional expression is unsafe. At one point, before my brother’s funeral, I felt safe to feel things out loud, to share my emotions. After a year of difficult therapy, I finally opened up about my secret pain. They all left me, even used that pain as a tool against me. I sank deep into the armchair, keeping my eyes pinned forward; the wardrobe, abandoned and looming in my peripheral. I didn’t dare cry