Cut off the limb

My mom told me a story to help me get over my break-up. It went like this...
Before she met my father she was in a relationship with what she belived to be the perfect man caring, fun, attentive, handsome. Her friends told her he was cheating on her but she didn't believe it until they forced her to go to a matinee screening at the local cinema. She gradually realised that she was sitting behind her boyfriend who was sitting next to another girl. She had to sit put for an entire three hour Hindi movie while the man she thought she loved cuddled and kissed a girl that wasn't her.

So I asked her what she did. "I ignored him when I saw him in the street, I didn't take any of his calls and after a few weeks I stopped crying and three months later I met your father," she said.
So why is it that I find it so hard to cut ties?
I've emailed, smsed, called all to ask for closure. I mean we split up on a break but a break is always a break-up. If you need a break from the person you love it means that you don't really love them. I've been stressing out that I'm the bad guy, the one who caused all the strife, the unreasonable one. My ex made me believe that I emotionally broke him, made him feel like dirt and broke his heart beyond repair. The first blow came when I decided that I needed to start thinking about dating again. Checked out Tinder and saw him already on there. Then I see that he's flirting with a girl on Facebook and that really tipped me over the edge. All this time that I've been feeling guilty and feeling awful he moved on within less than a month. I guess three years didn't make that much of a lasting impression.

I was so upset. I was upset to the point that I cried like a baby in my car and a hobo looked at me like I was pathetic. And then I realised what was the point of feeling bad when I had caused my own sadness. I'm not as strong as those people who can maintain all the rules and regulations of Facebook. I can't be friends with him on Facebook  and not look at what's going on and what's the point of being friends on Facebook anyway, we're not friends in real life. And why should I have his number just to keep telling myself not to text and call him. Back in my mom's day the extent of losing a number was throwing the slip of paper over the balcony or tearing it into pieces. They didn't text then check every 2 minutes if the message had been read. So I deleted his number off my phone, I blocked him on whatsapp, I blocked him on google chat, which I never even used before. I thought I'd feel sad and maybe I still will but right now I feel relieved, I feel free that I never have to know where he is or what he's doing. He was my first love, I guess I can remember the good times and what I took away from the relationship but I can't remember him. His face, his voice, his smell they all need to fade into time like your grandmothers worn sofas which suggest the pattern of roses but you can't quite be sure or ever confirm that's what they were.