You know those 'I'm a PC... and I'm a Mac' adverts? Well, here is a variation on the theme for you:

My ex, the one known here as the Boy, is a PC user. I am a Mac user. This week, in a misguided attempt to win me back, he posted a birthday gift - a 320 gig external hard drive stuffed with the entire digital record of our time together. Photos, videos, the lot.

Only the Boy, he is not what we would call super tech-savvy. Because on plugging the drive into my Mac - fully intending to reformat the disk and erase over all of that shite for I am, if nothing else, disinclined to look gift horses in the mouth - I scanned through the folders to see first if there were any mementoes worth saving.

What do you think I found, alongside all the soppily renamed, weren't-we-great-together rest? Only the Recycle Bin folder, of course. Which he had neglected to empty.

Oh, PC. You really aren't very clever, are you?

And there were the real photos. The ones of him and that other woman, the one whose saggy, hippo-like form I'd found on my phone all those months ago. Here they were at his works do, him struggling to hold her aloft. Here she was in his bedroom, lounging in what might euphemistically be called a Rubenesque attitude. Here she was in an improvised toga at a fancy dress party, the mechanics of which garment seemed to rely entirely on the folds of fat under her arms to protect her dignity. Here was the rest of his holiday in New York, the week he spent there after I left, with... well, I don't believe you need to be told. Yes, here, in excruciating detail - as if the other photos weren't nearly enough - was the record of his other relationship with the potato-faced frump he judged superior to me.

So, how do you think I felt? Angry? Detached? Deflated? None of the above actually. What I felt was gratitude. Gratitude and happiness. It was as if a shadow falling over my life had suddenly retreated, showing me the beautiful day it was hiding all along.

In point of fact it is one of the best and most timely gifts I have ever received. This proves, as if proof were needed, what sort of a man he is and how much better my life is now. While I will probably always be appalled to have wasted so much of my life and love on him, at least I got three books' worth of content out of the fucker. She can have the rest of him and good riddance. This is exactly what I needed, the final piece in the puzzle of letting go.