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While all of the guys I've dated over the years have held a place in my heart, several of them have also held another piece of prize real estate: a spot on the wall above my couch or my bed. Not that these guys have literally hung on my walls, silly. Rather, a couple of them have given or helped me shop for or hang the few pieces of "nice artwork" I own.

The first was from Jeff, my first post-college boyfriend and my first long-distance relationship. He bought me a cool photograph of a lovely tree-lined trail in Central Park that I admired one day when we were at the mall together. Though neither of us had ever been to Central Park, it still made me think of him fondly every time I saw it. I could just picture us sitting on one of the inviting benches in the shot.

When we broke up, looking at this poster elicited an emotion much more like a sad ache. But I still couldn't bring myself to take it down. I liked the picture. At the time, it was the only piece of large-ish framed art my roommate and I owned. And it had become part of my home environment. To take it down would only leave another hole in my existence right then. So it remained and eventually stopped being a Symbolic Reminder and finally became just a nice picture of a park.

Then there was the vintage travel poster that Chris helped me frame. Actually, he helped me pick out this Paris poster on our very first outing, and then went with me a week later to pick out matting and a frame for it. I remember being delightfully amused that he had very distinct opinions on these matters. The final cost of this little project ended up being way more than I'd envisioned spending, even though his mom, who'd worked in a framing store, framed the poster for me the next time she was in town. But I didn't mind so much; each outing was another chance to get to know Chris better. Seeing that poster on my bedroom wall reminded me of the first steps in our slow dance from shopping buddies to dating couple.

When he moved away, the beginning of the end for us, I thought it was appropriate that it was a travel poster he'd helped me buy and frame. Finally, one day much later, I was able to look at it with appreciation for the memories and joke to myself, "We'll always have Paris."

My most recent paramour helped me hang the picture currently over my couch. I can still picture him standing precariously on my couch with my power drill in his hands trying valiantly to figure out how to put a nail-hole in my apartment's finicky plaster wall without turning the entire thing to fine white powder.

I admit I was nervous at first that he would do just that. But there was something so endearing about having someone climb on my furniture and try to conquer my decorating dilemma for me, I was more than willing to take a risk and let him have a go at it. In the end, we got it hung just right, with only minor amounts of plaster missing. I smiled at the funny memory every time I looked at the picture, and even more so at the small concave part of my wall just to the right of it.

Now he's the one who's missing, and for a while, looking at the picture—remembering—made me sad.

It's not as though I ever set out to make artwork my "thing" with the guys I date. Just in the natural progression of spending time together we've shared these objects, these moments. In the days and weeks right after the guy's gone, it's been easy to question why I allow something so visible and key to my home environment to be affected by these entanglements of the heart. Sometimes it's easy to wonder why I even allow myself to open up to another shot at lasting love, to see the why or the good in the relationship when it could simply seem just like another exercise in disappointment or pain.

I remember sitting on my couch after my most recent breakup, looking at that picture, feeling the familiar sad ache, and thinking I should have learned better by now than to continually find myself living in a gallery of past relationships.

But then I took a good look at the rest of my walls and decorated spaces. There's a clock from Lisa, a cool candle-holder from Jen, a poster from my sister and brother-in-law, a three-foot-high Eiffel Tower from Kathryn. Things I've bought on shopping excursions with friends, postcards of girlfriend getaways, framed pictures of my family members. My friends and family are all around me with these things. This isn't just a showcase of past loves, it's a gallery of all the people who've made an impact on my life.

I'm beginning to realize that in some ways, I'm a gallery of all these people too—with impressions of each of these people hanging somewhere in my being, making up the whole of this gallery showing, making me who I am. The friends have made me happy and more Christ-like. The family members have made me secure and brave. Even the lost loves have made me stronger and wiser and richer.

Some of these "hangings" have a prominent place in the permanent collection, and some are in the dimly lit back hallways, and on occasion these displays all shift around. But they're all there—each person and relationship, each love and loss—creating the messy work-in-progress that is me.

When I take the time and discipline to see each person and portrait through God's eyes, I realize they're all masterpieces, they're all God's workmanship (Ephesians 2:10). Because of that, all are treasured and needed and beautiful.

And because of that, I'll continue to keep some wall space open … in my home, in my heart, in my life.

Camerin welcomes your feedback and brainstorms at: SinglesNewsletter@ChristianityToday.com

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