By REBECCA SPARROW
Anyone who’s suffered a fractured heart from a love affair gone rogue knows that reversing the car over your ex’s favourite Counting Crows CD does little to ease the pain. Long term anyway.
The problem, of course, is that their fingerprints are all over your life and remain there – hovering – long after your lover has left for good. There’s the doona cover you bought together that Saturday after brunch with his sister . The jar of parmesan-stuffed olives in the fridge you often shared on Sunday nights while you watched Homeland. The cherry-coloured scarf you wore when you met. The Anne Rice novel you were convinced to read. All souvenirs that strangle your heart because of the memories they leak like tears.
So when you think about it, the Museum of Broken Relationships in Croatia is providing a much needed community service. A home to those legacies of love; the shrapnel left behind when love packs up and moves on.
Click through to the museum’s website to view some more of their enthralling exhibitions. You won’t be able to stop clicking.
According to the Museum’s website:
Whatever the motivation for donating personal belongings – be it sheer exhibitionism, therapeutic relief, or simple curiosity – people embraced the idea of exhibiting their love legacy as a sort of a ritual, a solemn ceremony. Our societies oblige us with our marriages, funerals, and even graduation farewells, but deny us any formal recognition of the demise of a relationship, despite its strong emotional effect.
So true. We are a society that celebrates and ritualises the happy, the joyous, the successes. But the sour moments – the tragedies – well, you’re on your own, kid.
I can sit here and think of half a dozen items from past love affairs I could donate. Items I’ve kept because … actually, God knows why. Because they’re the souvenirs of my romantic life? I don’t even know.
Top Comments
I got a friend of mine to leave a bag full of mementos (mostly things he'd made me...ouch!) at my ex's house after he ended our relationship. Later that day I got an email from him asking me to please also return the bottle of Moet he gave me. He actually stole it from a function he went to. I replied telling him I would do no such thing but would be sure to toast him with my girlfriends on my hens night.
My bf and i split like a month ago, we still see each other weekly for sport however. I gave him a pair of Qantas pajama pants for him to wear around the house, he still has them (don't think i'll be getting them back either but no matter). He gave me (well, I chose) a pandora ring for our 6 month anniversary, it's beautiful and i wore it every day. I bought another one instead and while i WILL wear the other one again, I just don't want to right now.