The Art of Letting Go

The Museum of Broken Relationships. “Eclectic” is an understatement; “quirky” almost an insult. However, it is hard to describe. A collection of items to ‘celebrate’ the objects left behind after your heart has been broken. A museum of objects with little monetary value, and often no aesthetic quality to speak of. That sort of says it. An unassuming street in Zagreb, five minutes from the wildly colourful St Mark’s church, hosts this extraordinarily affecting attraction which delivers on that true jackpot of travel promises: a unique experience for each person who enters, and a memory that could truly alter your perspective.
Inside, the building is understated and simply lets its stories do the talking. There was an almost reverent atmosphere as I moved around the exhibits, weaving between other mesmerised visitors in the white-walled corridors. The daughter who donated her mother’s favourite dress when she died; the man who submitted the letter informing his fiancée of her terminal cancer; the boy who sent his copy of a video game after it drove his girlfriend away; the champagne cork from a bottle toasting the settling of a divorce. Each one struck me in a different way, some leaving permanent marks.
There were stories of hilarity and of hope, as well as of abject tragedy, and I read every single one. I smiled in recognition, winced in horror, shook my head in pity and awkwardly gulped in sadness as the words of people I had never met resonated loudly with my own memories. I thought of a teddy bear sitting in a wardrobe in my own house, a ghost of something not meant to be, and wondered if this shrine to moving on would be a better home for it.
I was transported into the intimate details of so many peoples’ lives. Their misfortunes, abandonments, betrayals and losses swirled in my mind and yet, as these stories impacted me, I sensed the loads lifting from the shoulders of the storytellers. Perhaps the true beauty of visiting a museum as outstanding as this in the course of one’s travels is that we, too, will move on – on to the next place and in search of the next experience. Travelling, for me, is so integral to life that it is almost life itself. We meet people, we leave people, we find places where our souls are at ease and where our minds are inspired but we don’t stand still for long. We don’t need ghostly objects to remind us to remember; just beautiful places, like this museum in the glorious heart of Zagreb, that we cannot possibly forget.