Typing these old journal entries has reminded me of what a huge pain in the ass it was to write an entry (nearly) every day when I was in England. There are some pages where my handwriting is barely legible and even less coherent, because I was delirious with exhaustion when I wrote them. Nevertheless, it paid off. There’s a lot I’d forgotten about the trip, and recalling those little details has been fun. Lots of “oh, yeaaaah! I forgot about that!” It’s also just interesting to see where I was in my life and what all I was thinking, such a relatively short time ago. I’m only about a third of the way into this massive archiving project, but already I can see a change in my tone as 20-year-old me moves through the first month of my trip.

As I was typing up the most recent entry, another memory came to me—of something that happened much later, after the trip, but is still intrinsically linked to it. When I was in England, I bought Seth little presents every so often and accumulated quite a cache by the end of the trip. An Arsenal jersey that cost me 50 quid—roughly 100 American dollars at the time, a London phone booth-shaped bottle opener, a sticker from Loch Ness. And a six-pack of beer. Six assorted ales from a tiny little brewery in Hook Norton. I’d bought them with the intention that we’d drink them together. I’d decided to wait until turning 21 before I had my first official drink, and although I was already within the legal drinking age in Great Britain when I arrived and had turned 21 about a month before returning back to the States, I’d wanted to have my first real drink with Seth. Saving myself for him, as it were.

Our reunion after my trip had some awkward moments, but eventually the film of weirdness that had developed over the course of our separation fell off and we were back to normal. Or so it seemed. Gradually, over the course of the next few months, we drank a few of the beers but it was during the fall of our senior year that things started to fall apart. It was October when he first told me he was unhappy and wanted out. I’d talked him out of leaving—for the time being, at least—and in the interim between our first breakup and our last, we may have shared one of the beers in an attempt to recapture some of whatever compelled me to dream up the idea of sharing them in the first place. In retrospect, it seems like a desperate attempt to rekindle something we’d lost. The beers by now had developed this unique significance—symbols of our past happiness—and I honestly can’t remember if we avoided drinking them during that time because it would have rung false, or if I just wish now that we did. The last presents we ever exchanged were also throwbacks to a happier phase. I got him a green sweater—a replacement for one he’d had freshman year and he got me a dvd of a movie that had been more or less instrumental in getting us together. But I digress.

When we broke up for good, there were still beers left. I’d already returned the rest of his things by the time I made the painful discovery in my mini fridge, but when I came across them then, they didn’t seem like empty false hope. Then, they represented all the love and memories, all that we had ever shared or had in common. And I wanted absolutely nothing to do with them. I wrapped them up in a brown paper bag with a note, and left them on his doorstep, not even bothering to ring the bell.

As I slogged through the months between the breakup and graduation, I put the beers out of my mind. Either he’d drink them or he wouldn’t. I tried not to think about the possibility that he might share them with his new girlfriend; but, as I reminded myself, I’d given them to him and what he did with them was his prerogative. Yes, technically, the idea was for us to share them, but the gesture was intended as a gift to him, and so, I figured, should the beer be. The months passed, graduation came and went, and eventually it was time for us to leave Carleton for good. As we packed up and moved out, we really didn’t say much to each other beyond the necessary polite pleasantries as we hauled boxes, or returned errant belongings. Just before he left, however, he came to see me in my townhouse. I honestly don’t remember what all we said to each other, but I do remember trying to convince him not to give me back the beer, and failing. I remember him saying maybe we could share them once we were both in Madison and had put this whole thing behind us. It’s a miracle that I didn’t punch him. I remember not even wanting to look at the beer, and feeling so confused. Wanting to know why he’d kept it all this time. Why he hadn’t just drank it or thrown it away. Why he’d decided to give it back to me. I didn’t know if he’d intended it as a peace offering, if he was selfishly insensitive to its implication, or if he was just too much of a coward to deal with the beer himself.

So the beer came home with me. I lived with it over the summer in Louisville and in August I brought it up to Wisconsin with me. My decision to move to Madison was 95% for myself and 5% because I’d hoped the proximity to Seth would at least allow for the possibility of some kind of reconciliation. My reasons for bringing the beer had the same kind of break-down percentage, although I now wonder if my bringing them at all was a sign that I was more than 5% optimistic that one day we’d be in a place where we could share—and finish—those last few beers together.

In Madison, we made some stumbling attempts at getting together, approaching the idea of being friends. It never happened and I still don’t know whether it’s a good or bad thing. In one of our email exchanges, he asked, among other things, if I still had the beer. I wrote him back, but failed to tell him that I’d drank them all a couple months prior. They were all pints and my tolerance is low, but in one evening in January, I drank myself into closure, alone and all in one sitting. January marked one year’s passing since he’d told me he didn’t love me anymore, and it was that January that I realized that no matter what happened between the two of us, we were never again going to get to a place where we could share the beer together.

I think it’s kind of interesting how important the beer seemed at the time, and how silly it all seems now. Then, I tried to pass it off like it was just alcohol—just material goods that meant nothing, but I was fooling myself. Of course they meant something. I think the symbolic importance that certain cultures attach to objects is really interesting, but what’s doubly fascinating are those things that are uniquely meaningful within a relationship between two people—or within a group of friends. Those inside jokes that can get everyone laughing with one word, or language that means something completely different to certain people, or those relics leftover from relationships. It’s almost like they’ve got an extra layer of significance stretched over them that only becomes visible in the context of a memory.