Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about exes, perhaps because I have so many swirling around my life, as friends, frenemies, and flirtations. It’s also led me to wonder what I’m supposed to do with all the things that remind me of my exes that litter my apartment: from movie stubs to clothing I wore on dates to—especially—sex toys.

For instance, I have a gorgeous paddle with red hearts on it that I bought while traveling, intending it to be used by a very specific lover on me. I just can’t see myself using it now with someone else because I’d be thinking about the first guy. Yet, it’s too beautiful to give away. Should I hang it on my wall and call it art?

Similarly, the collar worn by my sometime fuck-buddy that I used to carry in my purse every day, in case we spontaneously met up? I don’t know whether to keep it or give it away. Right now, it’s in a prominent place in my apartment, and every time I see it I feel a little wistful. There’s a chance we might rendezvous again, but in my head, that collar’s time has come and gone.

I don’t always use toys with lovers, so having those powerful reminders of not just the person, but our sex life together, can be daunting. There are other things that remind me of exes—Eddie Vedder, poetry, socialism, theater. Some of them so broad that I feel like I will never escape my past, because those aren’t exactly topics one can avoid at all times.

Maybe I don’t have to, because lately, I’ve been working on finding ways to befriend exes I still care about without having it slip into a friends-with-benefits. I don’t want to erase them from my memory entirely—if that were even possible. I just want to be able to move forward without feeling so much angst over them, and when I look at the toys, especially, I get taken back to exactly where I was and what I felt when we used them.

I also have a ton of old toys that are just old, like a Hitachi Magic Wand (my favorite vibrator, for the record) whose cord broke. Those I plan to send to the Sex Toy Recycling Program. But the others? They feel too personal to give away, even though they’re perfectly functional.

It’s one thing if I used a toy during phone sex, because then it still feels like mine. Toys I’ve used to get someone else off feel like, by extension, they belong to the person. Some of them I’ve left at an ex’s place, because I just can’t see myself asking, “Hey, can I have that vibrating cock ring back?” It would sound petty and rude, and do I really want it back? That’s not the type of toy I’d feel okay recycling in a new relationship.

I once went over to a guy’s apartment I’d just started seeing and he had an impressive collection of toys, ranging from under-the-bed bondage restraints to a rabbit vibrator. I thought it was cool that he was into toys, and into using them with/on me, but the vibrator gave me pause. Had he used it with other girls? I didn’t think too much about it (probably because I was tied up at the time!) but it did make me wonder, though I was too afraid to ask.

It also means that, for example, the firm leather custom-made paddle my friend Stacie gave me for my birthday, which has my name (and a cupcake!) on it, I’m hesitant to bare my butt for, because what if I use it with someone, we break up, and then it just becomes yet another relationship souvenir?

A blog reader, Lisa W., shared her take on which toys to keep and which to toss: “I’ve kept other toys I’ve used with other guys before. I still have a set of bed-restraints around that I used once with an ex and a few vibrators as well. I kept using the vibes because I could use them by myself and therefore take away any association with the guy once I was over him. The bed-restraints I am cool with using on my newer guy because it somehow seems acceptable that they only touched the ex’s wrists and ankles as opposed to being something that went on his cock or up his ass. If I still had stuff that had been on or in my ex, you bet those would have to be recycled as well.”

I’m perhaps being far too sentimental, but it’s a genuine dilemma. I already remember entire conversations, email exchanges and dates that I often wish I could zip into my brain and erase. I don’t need a vibrator I remember a lover holding against his cock to transport myself back to that moment.

While I’d like to get all new toys with new partners, that’s impractical—and I have some very lovely toys I’ve collected over the years, expensive paddles, especially. Yet it would be horrible to be playing with someone new and thinking about an older lover, something I already struggle with on occasion. Plus, I have no poker face, so I think it would be obvious.

I just started seeing someone new and already have lots of ideas about toys I’d like to use with her, and the process of browsing new ones together and discussing our mutual interests sounds hot. Maybe I should just put my mementos in a box to be savored when I’m feeling nostalgic, and simply start fresh because once you throw a toy out, you can’t get it back.

I’d love to hear what you do with your toys (you can write me here). Maybe I’m missing out on some great opportunity to create jewelry or deconstruct them and turn them into something new and fantastic.