About a week of so ago I decided to tackle the 5 boxes of greeting cards and other memorbilia that had been sitting and gathering dust in my house since 1842. Alright, I have not really been alive that long (just feels like that some days) but the contents of several of the box's did actually date back to the late 80's and had not been touched or looked at since about never. I also inherited lots of my mother's stuff. It's called the passing on of the junk phenomenon.
Here are just a few of the boxes.
And I do mean hundred's of greeting cards. Several hundred. Filling several boxes. That just sat there in my house doing nothing. Like a rock. Or a man watching football. For E V E R! I decided it was time to rid the house of it all. Or most of it at least. I also believe that the general rule on keeping stuff goes something like this:
If the item has not been used, worn or sat on in the last six months and does not serve a specific purpose, it's time to pitch that sucker to the hill's. Or something like that.
Herein lies the only problem with that. I'm a sentimentalist. (is that a real word?) I have a hard time throwing items away that I believe to have meaning or are useful in rekindling a beneficial memory of some sort. It's silly issue and I have oodles of junk I don't really need because of it. I've just always been that way. Why? I'd like to know. Someone please tell me now! Oh, nevermind.
Next I asked myself outloud "Self, how often will you really sit down and look at all of this stuff again, if ever?" I answered with a loud "Never! I will never, ever look at this stuff". I talk to myself often. My boys have finally gotten use to this little quiky trait about their mother and by now have stopped asking who I'm talking to, which I am thankful for because I was running out of things to say. Things like "Oh, I'm just talking with my inner child sweetie, she was lonely" or "I was just singing, very slowly" or my personal favorite "I was just practicing my lines in case I'm ever in a movie". They never really bought any of those. Not really.
Anyway, I started rummaging through the stuff and decided on this method of keeping/tossing things:
- If it's a greeting card with a long message or letter - KEEP. (reading written words from a loved one is fun)
- If it's a greeting card with one name signed inside. EX. Love, Aunt Willameena - TOSS. (it was a nice thought)
- If it's a thought you have jotted down or favorite quote - KEEP. ( you can plan on making a book of your favorite quotes to look at from time to time-or not)
- If it's a letter you've previously written to someone and you've since inherited back - KEEP. (it's wonderful to see how far you've come since moving off to some unknown city when you were naive enough to think you knew it all and had it all figured out and wrote home about brillant you were. Or thought you were. Entertaining reading for sure.)
- If it's old notes and "how to's" on the perfect diet and how to stay super skinny forever - refer to bulletpoint #2
- If you come across something like what I'm about to show you below- KEEP KEEP KEEP. Keep it I say! Keep it forever and look at it 5 time's a day like I have since finding it two weeks ago. Then frame it like so you can continue to read it everyday til infinity.
A note of my mother's. I have never seen it before now. In her beautiful handwriting. With her perfectly looped g's and f's and y's that I loved so much.
It's a list. Of things she had loved. I thought... when did she write this? There is no date what-so-ever to be found. The paper is old, aged. Was she twenty five? Thirty five?
I sat mesmerized as I read through each one. Like a little, super short glimpse of her life on paper. The things she LOVED. Did I ever really know ALL of the thing she loved? She was a lover of life. Really she was.
I couldn't help but think these thing as I read certain items:
pipe smoke - her gradfather smoked a pipe and I can alway remember her talking about the wonderful smell of his pipe when she was a child. She truly loved this.
butterfly's- one of her favorite things on earth. Truly!
hot coffee - me too mama, me too!
brown eyes - mine perhaps? (smile)
new shoes - I didn't know she loved new shoes!
dimples - her very favorite thing about my Austin
What a treasure I found. For a sentimentalist (there's that word again), junk keeping, scrapbooking, detailed sap like me, I had just hit a goldmind. Most of the rest of the stuff could be tossed at this point. I'd found a keeper. Loved it!
Such a sweetie she was.
Now, what things have I loved? Truly loved? I will ponder.
It's good to clean out the junk and get organized.
What I've learned from this experience... the gold/treasure that lies within a pile of junk can be found if your willing to take the time to sift through it all.
"Really, really." (name that movie)
Try it you'll like it.
I think.
Over and out.
The SLM
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