Rachael Ray and the sadness she brings

Yep, not ready to watch the Food Network yet. Emeril maybe, but not Rachael Ray. I'm de-ex-boyfriending my apartment. The man I loved dumped me last night. I asked him for honesty and directness and he replied with "I don't love you anymore." The breakup I can handle, that latter bit blew.
Funny, the things that you do after a breakup. Since September 23, 2003, I have woken up to a stuffed red flower with a long curly green tail on my nightstand. Matt had gotten it for me while he was in Vegas with his friends the week before my birthday. We were already having issues and I was prepared to give him the boot upon his return. When he walked into my apartment that night, he cried a little, said "I don't want to lose you" and offered the little flower, which he'd slept with so it would smell like him, a mixture of cheap cologne and chest hair that I had come to love. I tossed it today. Then I saw the egg he'd made me during our Easter-season issues. All it said was "I love K.W " and my tag: two blue dots, a red smile, and four brown curly strands of hair. I tossed that, too. Just now I tossed the homemade Christmas tree ornaments we made, especially saddened by the red heart he'd made that said "K.W + M.D." Then I remind myself of the way he treated me in our final days: sometimes like a stranger, sometimes like a second class citizen, sometimes like a child, sometimes like a sexually unappealing sad woman. He was often distant, angry and ambiguous and I realized he wasn't scared of losing me anymore and there would be no tears shed this time. And so now I'm comforted by chucking these things: they illustrate the timeline of a relationship that sometimes was lovely and easy and charmed but ultimately was spotted with issues, miscommunications and conflicting views on what a relationship should be and where one's priorities lie when one is half of a couple. Something was always missing, something was always sitting not quite right. So I greet my newfound singledom with some sadness but also with a load of relief.
I've weathered bigger heartaches than this. My last ex . . . I had to hide all of my stuffed animals because he's a very funny man, skilled in puppetry and had a different voice and personality for each of my bedtime friends. And we have worked together in the same office and shared a lot of the same friends every day since. Now I consider him a cherished friend, someone who has seen me through some of my finest and lowest moments. And he is someone I thought I had a real future with. My current ex . . not so much. My friends hated this current ex. They take turns calling him "schmuck," "unfunny," " a 2 on the 1-10 scale" and that makes it all that much easier.