(Leif K-Brooks – commons.wikimedia.org)

I’ve been meaning to tell you this for a few months now. This isn’t easy for me to do, and it may not be easy for you to hear. You may feel pain in the reading of this letter, but maybe after the first shock, the sharpness in your chest will recede and your temperature will return to normal, and we will both begin to get on with our lives again.

I loved you so very much. You were the light that I sought in a dark place, and for a time, life was again worth living. We made so many wonderfully vivid memories together. You remembered all my words and my pictures, deep within you, much like I now remember you and look back fondly on when we first met. My time with you, until the end, was vibrant; you gave off a palpable energy that I was so drawn to, and what we had was tangible, was visceral.

But I’m seeing someone new — someone by the name of Apple, and I will never get back together with you, PC.

Know that I never cheated on you, though. I was just friends with the iPad, a purely Platonic relationship. At the time that I met the iPad, you were the only one for me, and please be assured that I was faithful to you until the end. Of course, with that sleek, elegant mobile device, I started to see that a relationship could be more than the kind of thing that you and I had. Our relationship was on the rocks: I was asking for things that you couldn’t give me, or didn’t want to. And still I would have stuck to you even then, but you started playing tricks on me. I don’t know if you felt the presence of the new device, but you started slowing down. You wouldn’t take the charge from the battery anymore. You got sick with a virus, and even though I bought antiviral software for you, you never ran the same again.

But mostly, you just weren’t there for me when I needed you. You up and quit just as I was completing my thesis work. If I hadn’t foreseen your imminent departure and relied on my flash drive as a precautionary measure, I might still, a year later, be reconstructing my research and writing. I needed you then, but you were wild and you were frustrating and you were uncontrollable. When you gave up on me entirely, I had no choice left but to grow closer to the iPad. It talked me through our breakup.

And after feeling disappointed and let down by you — day after day, month after month — I just gave up. I don’t really even know what to do with you, and so — mentally and literally — you have been relegated to the dark and dusty space under my bed. You lay there covered with cat fur. You disgust me.

But I’m seeing someone new — Apple. The MacBook Air is the best thing that has happened to me. You know how some people say that in love, “when it’s right, it’s easy?” Well that’s how I feel with the MacBook. It’s so easy, so dependable, so clean. And the battery lasts much longer than yours ever did. I’ve never been let down by it. It’s easy to maneuver and easy to edit photos and it’s light. It is so light.

You know, PC, we shared some good years throughout college, but I’m ready for an adult relationship. I’m ready to be in a relationship that goes both ways. With you, I was always fighting with you and fighting to defend you to my cooler and wiser friends. I won’t ever forget those first few good months with you; I hold them in my heart and there they will stay, but in the words of T. Swift, “we are never, ever, ever getting back together.”

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Laura Creel (@Little_Utopia) is the managing editor of Little Utopia.

Previously from Laura Creel:
♦ In Memoriam: The Death of Many Cover Letters, Resumes and Job Applications
♦ Songs of My Mother: Part 1
♦ Macklemore’s “Thrift Shop” Gives Us a Run for Our Money