I threw your shirt away today.

I never gave it back to you because it’s really soft and it’s long enough to wear to bed and because I figured if you really wanted it, you would’ve asked for it. If you missed it, you would’ve put it on your list of demands and I would’ve added it to the bag of things I handed over to you through the window of my car the afternoon we said goodbye for the final time. But you never did and never let on that you were aware of its disappearance even though you might’ve guessed where it ended up and you would’ve been right. And so I kept silent and put it on when I was feeling lonely, comforted when things were going badly that I at least had custody of your high school basketball tournament t-shirt.

I don’t know when I stopped reaching for it. I couldn’t tell you the time of year or the day of the week. I’m not sure if it’s because I found a more suitable pair of pajamas or because I was officially over you or both but I banished it to the back of a dresser drawer full of old workout gear. Although it remained hidden, I knew it was there just in case I needed it. The odd thing is that I put up with a lot of your shit before I actually decided to dispose of it. I just let it stay there, out of sight but there, much like the hope I held in the back of my mind that maybe you’d beg me one more time to try again and I would say yes and we would be happy instead of miserable.

But I knew that long-term happiness for us wasn’t in the cards. I knew that. And I knew it was better for both of us when I heard that you found someone else. And that it was serious. I was too hurt to see that it was a good thing, too blinded by rage and rejection and confused by your mixed signals to see the bigger picture. I fell into the embarrassing role of crazy ex-girlfriend, overly analytical, scanning all past communication for clues. If you were with her and you were happy, why did you send me a birthday gift? Did she know you did that? Did she care?

But you messed with my head and I messed with yours, probably in a worse way. I wasn’t always honest with you and I was passive-aggressive and I wanted to pull you in and push you out simultaneously. Towards the end, I think I depended on you to make me happy, relied on you to show me how to stand on my own two feet. I stopped showing you gratitude, started taking you for granted, lashed out anytime it wasn’t about me and my needs. And oh my God, if I felt that saying I was sorry was enough to erase all that, I would say it.

Instead, I threw away your shirt.

It wasn’t premeditated.

I didn’t wake up and decide it was time to let it go. I didn’t have a note written down in my calendar that today was Getting Rid Of You Day though knowing my penchant for To Do Lists and color coding, that’s probably how it might have gone. But that would mean I had thought about it for awhile before I did it, maybe collected other things of yours—letters and birthday cards, the loose tea I still have sitting in my freezer—and held a ritualistic disposal. Perhaps if I was feeling dramatic, I would’ve set everything ablaze in some sick sort of funeral pyre in my bathtub so I could watch it burn while my roommate quoted something about Buddha and clearing out space for something new to come in.

But it really was quite unceremonious.

I didn’t need to work up the courage to do it, didn’t need to bear down and take a drag on some inner strength. No. Instead, I got out of the shower, went to the dresser drawer, pulled it out with a gentle tug and dropped it into the garbage can, where it landed serenely on top of cold coffee grinds and a brown-spotted banana peel. As the day went on, the faded royal blue fabric sank lower and lower into the trash until only a bit of the sleeve peeked out from under a plastic takeout container and a few papertowels I used to wipe off the kitchen counter.

The garbage men will take it away on Tuesday and I doubt it will even cross my mind. It surprised me how little I felt about it this morning, how nonchalantly I grabbed it out of the drawer, how infrequently I thought about it as the day wore on. The thing is, I can stay mad at you as long as I like. I can seethe at your mistakes, can repeatedly smack my hand to my forehead over banal e-mails you send me about how your weekend was. I can scream at no one in particular that you are clueless in thinking that everything between us “okay”, that, as you put it “we can embark on a new path together” as you stand at the threshold of ‘Til Death Do Us Part with someone else.

But really, what it comes down to is that there isn’t a new path for us to travel down together. You took a sharp right at Commitment and I hit a Dead End sign and sat down in the dirt and blinked. The reality is that there isn’t room in my heart for e-mails about how your weekend was because I used to know every detail of your weekend and a summary no longer feels fair. I feel cheated and bitter and I do not like the person I am when I feel like that.

And so, I threw out your shirt.

And once and for all, I decided to get up off the dirt in front of the Dead End sign, decided to back up out of the No Outlet. I brushed the backside of my pants off and pushed the hair out of my eyes and turned around. My feet got stuck in the mud quite a bit and sometimes they slipped on rocks and I fell to the ground, landing hard on my palms, knocking the wind out of my chest. But I kept going.

And you know?

I found the pavement. And with every steady step, I grow closer and closer to the sunlight. And in the warmth of the summer air, there is no need for faded blue t-shirts, just white strappy tank tops and sunglasses. I don’t know what your path holds in store for you since I will not be walking next to you. I don’t know how many twists and turns and speed bumps you might encounter but I do hope they are few and that they are overwhelmed by perfect spring days and kayaking on a smooth lake and climbing up tall mountains that bring you closer to God.

I will be here, of course. Just walking in another direction, under the shade of skyscrapers and through the clouds of smoke that rise up from the manholes in the middle of the street. My heels will click along cobblestones as I hurry to meet friends for a drink or a first date for coffee. And no matter what, I’ll keep my head high as I walk through the crowds, as the taxi horns honk to one another and the garbage trucks lumber past, picking up the trash and carting it away.