JENN McKINLAY: Anyone who has read my input over the past eight and a half years that I’ve been a Red, knows that one of my favorite things in life is to throw things out. Old clothes? Good will. Old art? Same. Old jewelry? Give it away. Anything broken beyond repair (I am a big repurpose and recycle person) goes to the dump. Thanks for your service and Adios!
I just don’t like stuff and I don’t keep things…unless they have sentimental value and then I slam into the brick wall of nostalgia and I just can’t. Photographs of old boyfriends? Still have them (in an album in a closet somewhere but I still have them). A granny square sweater my grandmother made for me in 1972 when I was a wee tot? Yup, I still have it on a shelf in the top of my closet. Why? It doesn’t even fit anymore! Obviously. Why can’t I unravel it and repurpose the yarn? I just can’t.
I thought I was a stoic/sentimental sort. I keep some things but not all. So imagine my surprise when I observed a recent breakup between a Hooligan and his Plus One and he deleted everything that was digital – texts, pictures, videos, and any connections through social media gone. Physical gifts, tchotchkes, cards, and print photos in an album were all tossed in the dumpster.
He had me stand witness to the purge and I’m not exaggerating when I say I started to sweat and felt a little queasy. I asked “Don’t you want to keep anything to remember the good times?” His answer: “No.” I thought it was because he was a dude so I asked the other Hooligan’s Plus One (who was also an observer of the purge) if she’d tossed everything from former relationships and she said, “Yes, absolutely. That stuff just makes you sad.”
Y’all, I was so surprised I’m still processing.
So, tell me, do you purge everything from relationships - romantic or otherwise - when they end badly? Or do you hang onto the mug you bought on the road trip, the baseball cap at the ballgame, and such to remember the moment shared with a little nostalgia? Like, seriously, do I really have to throw out the skull earring that belonged to my punk rock boyfriend in 1989? Because, yes, I still have it.
RHYS BOWEN: My romances were back in the days when we wrote letters to each other so I had kept all the letters my boyfriend had written to me. When I had finally moved on I ceremonially burned them. Now I wished I’d kept them as it wasn’t an acrimonious break up and I would have enjoyed remembering good times together. I don’t think I’ve kept anything sentimental from any former romances, but remember I moved to Australia and only took the minimum with me!
LUCY BURDETTE: Not so much on the old romances, but I do have boxes of letters I can’t throw out. Lots of them were sent to my grandparents from my dad when he was in the army. I have tons of old photos too that I keep meaning to organize when I have the time. HA! And letters and cards from many people over the years. It’s sad to me that people send greetings and notes by email or text–they’re too easy to lose or delete. What about our future memoirists? Where will they find their material?
HALLIE EPHRON: No old letters from ex-Xes here, either. I have a wonderful book of photographs of me and my high school, sweetheart. He was the nicest guy, a lot older than me, but not “the one.” My high school home life was a disaster and he kept me sane.
The bad exes weren’t writers, and maybe that should’ve been the tip-off that they weren’t for me. Jerry, of course, wooed me with cartoons and I saved all of them.
DEBORAH CROMBIE: I’ve never been particularly sentimental about saving mementos from relationships, but I’ve never done a slash-and-burn, either. I think, maybe, somewhere, I still have the airmail letters my ex wrote me when he was in Scotland and I was still in Texas. If I ever turn them up, I will definitely save them. (I don’t even want to contemplate the boxes of photos in my office closet…”)
HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Such a great question. I have too many mugs and t-shirts, those are the irresistible things for me at conventional and bookstores. (Mugs can be difficult, because they are impossible to pack.) For the past 20 years, I have kept my name badge from every event I’ve attended, and it’s kinda wonderful to see the descriptions under my name go from “debut author” and “first time” to “Keynote speaker” and “Guest of honor.” (The backs of TWO office chairs are filled with them–I cannot even imagine counting them.) And I have a bottle of wine that Sue Grafton gave me. Keeping forever.
Love letters, no, I have maybe…two. And some various other pivotal paperwork. And photos, sure. But I rarely look at any of it. And as for digital, my computer is full of stuff I have no idea is there.
JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: You know, this makes me realize I’m not one to collect or keep mementos in the first place (unlike Ross, who saved every piece of paper from every Bouchercon we ever attended…) I do have love letters, somewhere, from both Ross and prior beaus. I figured I’d add a codicil to my will stating they can be only be read by my grandchildren after they’ve turned twenty-five. They’ll think my flaming youth is interesting and historical, not horrifying.
Otherwise, the only sentimental items I can’t get rid of are some personal things Ross cherished and a few - few! - pieces related to my children. I grew up in the military, and of necessity my mother purged whenever we moved, and I suspect I got her practicality.
No ex-relationship letters or that sort of thing to consider . . . . but I am truly a sentimental saver whether it's letters or mementos or something that was my mom's, I definitely have it.
ReplyDeleteI feel that. I know I will cling to everything my mom has created. It comforts.
DeleteI am a packrat but have kept nothing from past romances!
ReplyDeleteI don't remember purposefully throwing things out like Hooligan did, but I can't think of anything I have from an ex.
We did not write letters or give each other cute keepsakes.
That's a bit of a relief. No second guessing. LOL.
DeleteI'm a purger.
ReplyDeleteMy people! I just need to be better about the nostalgic stuff.
DeleteIf I had had anything like that to begin with it would not have survived The Great Purge of 2024. I didn’t even keep my yearbooks. I did, however, still keep my autobiography from 6th grade…at least I think I did as I haven’t been in that box since we moved.
ReplyDeleteOh, my Brenda, your autobiography reminded me that somewhere I have a newspaper copy of a prize winning story published in the local paper when I was 14 that my mother had saved and I found when I was 67. Now where is it??? Elisabeth
DeleteHa! The old boxes that never get opened trick. I see you.
DeleteWow. I am pretty sure I have letters from exes. I know I have all kinds of letters and postcards from family and friends, not to mention the ubiquitous box of photographs. I'm terribly sentimental, and I hit a big brick wall when I try to sort through it all.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, are the Reds having Happy Hour tonight at 7?
DeleteNope, next Happy Hour is July 30 at 8 pm.
DeleteSorry, I meant 5:00 pm EDT. The next HH date/time was listed on the top of the June 28 blog post. https://www.jungleredwriters.com/2025/06/how-to-chill-in-heat-wave.html
DeleteThanks, Grace. I'd heard about the July 30 date but not that today's had been canceled.
DeleteThe REDS indicated a schedule change during summer months at the end of the June 7 HH live event.
DeleteAha. I missed the June 7 HHour.
DeleteI was all set for Happy Hour tonight. I don’t know how I missed the note snout the change in schedule!
DeleteDebRo
Edith and Grace, thanks for the update. Like DebRo I missed change notice. Elisabeth
DeleteThanks for keeping track, Grace!
DeleteRhys, like you I have all the letters of the courtship, and it was short (3 mos). It early in 1977, when talking was long distance, and a letter was 12 cents. We both liked to write – much more than talk, so the letters were long, and funny! Yes, I have them – just a small brown envelope. I don’t know if he knows or not. He wrote chronicles of our life starting after I was first pregnant, I think; definitely after Laura was born. This went on until we had a computer, possibly. He wrote in those hard-cover daily diaries, where one page is one day. They are all collected on a shelf in the basement. They will probably get opened when the archivists decide whether we were important enough to read about.
ReplyDeleteAs for other stuff – I have a baby book for Laura, just some things in it. Michael – less. Elizabeth – just her name and a bit of hair, and poor old Tristan – not even a book. Kid’s art – one school one from Laura, only because Jack thought it was fun. I do have framed photography by Laura and a lot of framed original art by Tristan, but I notice none have stood the test of time (light does terrible things) – I am sure when we are dead, they will be land-fill.
Now as for grandchildren art – yes, I do (semi) ooh and ahh when given them, and have to hold myself back to wait until they are gone to put the art in the fire. I prefer when they give me cookies – I can eat the evidence. Guess I am not sentimental at all.
I've always preferred edible gifts. LOL.
DeleteOh, Jenn, you old softy. I knew it!
ReplyDeleteI was just talking to my mom about this very thing last night. In addition to my own and my husband's nostalgic past memorialized in kept letters (including from past loves, as well as to and from one another), photos, and other memorabilia, we have Middle Daughter's kept stuff, too. She has boxes and boxes (and boxes!) of every notebook she ever wrote in, starting in grade school and up through college, along with all kinds of projects and books she wanted to keep. Over the weekend she was apparently going through a storage unit she's had now for three years (!), with all the belongings that won't fit into the ever smaller places she has lived. Her boyfriend is appalled that she's paying good money for the rental. Ha. He doesn't even know about her cache here in Ohio. It would free up a lot of space here if she would come and just decide what to pitch.
But I have no room to talk. When we moved six years ago I had boxes of memorabilia from our decades together. I started to go through it, invited Steve to see some of the treasures, and we ended up laughing and crying, and deciding we couldn't do it right then. So we still have all those kids' drawings and letters and concert programs cluttering up what should be more useful storage space. What I need to do is just photograph everything and throw away most of the actual stuff.
Yes! An artist friend of mine said to do that. Take a picture (digital archive) and give things away or toss them. Oy. I'm working up to it.
DeleteI've got letters from old boyfriends and other memorabilia, mostly in a big box in the basement. One of my boyfriends was a long term guest at the hotel where I worked and I managed to, um, take home the (of course paper in those days) archive of one of his bills. I believe it's still in the box in the basement. I never wanted to get rid of everything when relationships ended. I probably should ditch everything now. I can't believe my son would ever be interested in any of it. I, on the other hand, found my parents' early letters to each other fascinating. There was a section torn out of one of mom's diaries--we think it was probably about "Battleship George" or another beau.
ReplyDelete"Battleship George" -- Ha! I love it.
DeleteJENN: Have you tried trashie? Instead of the dumpster, you can send anything broken into the package and send it off to be recycled. I have used trashie. I try to recycle when I can. It is easy to send used items to trashie, once you figure it out. I think you order a trashie for ? twenty dollars ?, then fill it with old items, and bring it to the post office. With old electronics, there are electronic fairs where they collect old electronics. I try to avoid contributing to landfills if I can.
ReplyDeleteIt can be tough when one feels betrayed and I can understand why your kiddo would throw everything away after a bad bread up. People move on with their lives after bad break ups in different ways.
There is a box somewhere with letters from my former boyfriends. And box of photos. I still have this little prize that one of my boyfriends won for me at a summer country fair. When I travelled abroad, I sent postcards to myself and I still have them.
When I graduated from the first grade, our schoolteacher gave me a copy of Disney's Cinderella and thankfully she wrote my name in the book because it was almost gifted to someone else. I said "wait a minute, it was a gift".
Still trying to declutter and Karen in Ohio's idea about photographing everything is a great idea!
Oh, I love the idea of sending yourself postcards. Hub and I sent them to ourselves on our honeymoon but somehow I let the habit die.
DeleteI'm remembering I had a drawerful of letters from an old boyfriend. We wrote to each other every day even though we saw each other on the weekend. Back then phone calls were just too expensive. Everyone once in a while I think about those letters and wonder what happened to them. I assume that at some point my mother got rid of them. I hope she didn't read them first although they weren't x-rated or anything like that. Although maybe she had asked me what I want to do with them, but if so I don't remember that. If she did I probably would have said burn them all.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I wonder what happened to things like sweaters and socks that I knitted for him. I wonder what he did with them. He was the one who broke up with me. He was the oldest in a very large family to so maybe his younger siblings got the knitwear. In any case, I really don't care; they required hand washing anyway, so much more trouble than they were worth.
As for other boyfriends, I think I got rid of their stuff immediately. But in those cases I was the one who did the breaking up. Maybe that makes a difference.
Very wise, Judi. I do think it does depend upon who did the breaking.
DeleteAs I have mentioned before, last year we did the big downsize from a 4-bedroom home wth basement and office to a 3-bedroom (of which one serves as office), no basement condo. I forced myself to take that opportunity to purge a lot of stuff I had previously held onto. Though even now it kind of broke my heart, the wedding album from marriage #1 (which ended in 1985) went into the dumpster. Most (though not QUITE all) high school memorabilia was tossed. I went through boxes and boxes of physical photos and reduced it to two large plastic tubs of the most important/representative. I had saved all my Franklin Day Planner binders from the time I started using that system in the early 1980's, and I went through them and pulled out the pages where I had journaled and tossed the rest. It did not come easily to me, but I'm glad I did it. One of my motivating factors was that if I didn't do it, someday my poor only child would be forced to go through all that. I would not wish that on him!
ReplyDeleteEmotionally, though, I think I had developed a tendency to hold onto things because my mother ruthlessly got rid of EVERYTHING she had been holding for me when she decided to move to a different city at retirement. At the time there wasn't much discussion about it and I'm not sure I would have objected, but later I really felt the loss of all that childhood stuff. So I probably erred on the side of holding onto too many things "just in case." And even now, I kept a lot of memorabilia from my son's childhood.
It is so tough. I have entirely too much of the Hooligans' things and they have greenlighted me getting rid of it, but...I waffle. *sigh*
DeleteAm I sentimental or do I purge?? Come on over and take a look around my condo.
ReplyDeleteDebRo
You might say the same about me, DebRo, but what I have trouble getting rid of are things that might well be useful one day. Do I really need to keep four containers stuffed with gift bags, wrapping paper and tissue? No. No, I do not. But what if I need it for the next gift-giving occasion?!?
DeleteJulia, when I was growing up we not only saved wrapping paper, bows, etc., some of the wrapping paper would be ironed to make it more presentable! Whose Mom grew up during the depression? I actually continued this practice myself for years.c
DeleteThis past weekend I spent at least an hour going through the closet where we keep the wrapping paper, looking for ribbon so that I could finish wrapping and mail a birthday gift. I found many other things, but no ribbon! Had to go buy some. I'd much rather have been a ribbon hoarder...
DeleteMy mom did a lot of what I considered odd things because she lived through the Depression (at the end of the day, she poured the coffee left in the pot into an old mayonnaise jar and started the next day with that!), but I don’t remember her ironing the gift wrap. In the 70s she started wrapping presents for the family in the Sunday colored comics. I think that came out of the recycling movement, but probably tapped into her “I lived through the Depression and a World War” mentality. — Pat S
DeleteI hoard ribbons and then the cats find them and what I have is a lot of chewed ribbon. :(
DeleteI frequently save the leftover coffee for an iced coffee later in the day . . . or week.
DeleteUsed to collect and keep everything from any one. But then came the clean out of my parents’ home in 2013 which included stuff I was “temporarily” storing there … mostly dumpster or estate sale. It was gone. And then came this move to Florida in 2021 and “ruthless Randi” the personal organizer… and that was the rest of sentimental nonsense … no longer a sentimental saver. Elisabeth
ReplyDeleteRandi needs to pay me a visit. Clearly.
DeleteI'm starting a whole house purge. I'm keeping the messy shoeboxes of photos and the little bound booklets my kids made in grade school. They still make me proud.
ReplyDeleteI approve! Somethings you just have to keep.
DeleteI have, framed in the living room, two astounding pieces of art done by older and youngest nephew--get this--when they were in second and first grade, respectively. Those I will never part with. Those were never replicated or surpassed in later years, so a few other pieces were relegated to one banker's box of mementos for them. I have two banker boxes with sentimental stuff from my life. The purge I undertook was my journals. I took out any pages of poetry and writing that still reverberated in my heart all these years later, but the rest--adios! As for objects, a few remain, but a manageable few. So, yes, I'm sentimental, but also humble enough to realize no one else needs to see this stuff. P.S. Missy the gray cat is sitting on my desk as I write this, meticulously knocking off my research notes one page at a time. I'm guessing sentimental would not describe her and I hope that's not a comment on my current WIP!
ReplyDeleteAnon Flora, above.
DeleteFlora, cats are the least sentimental animals who ever lived. If they ever manage to figure out opposable thumbs, we're done for.
DeleteLOL, Julia! 100% correct.
DeleteI am very sentimental by nature. In a Hope Chest stored in our condo basement is the first Meet the Beatles album graffitied with a 14-year olds love-struck comments who crushed on George Harrison in particular. (I'm sure my "hen scratching" depleted the album's value but no matter; I'd never part with it anyway.) Also tucked away among some ski sweaters is my father's silk wedding tie he wore on the day he married my mother in the early 1940's along with an original Pullman's blanket he gave me when he was employed by the New Haven/New York Central Railroad. In a metal box are also his love letters to her when he was courting her. My dad grew up in orphanages and foster homes so his determination to marry my mother whom he loved very much and raise his own family was his #1 goal in his adult life. I think I inherited my father's sentimental genes. Not only do I keep cards and photos of family and friends I also have "rituals" that are clearly attached to sentimental remembrances and past experiences. My mother and I shared many coffee hours together over the years and my niece (who is an old soul in a young body) wants to keep those coffee hours going with me which I truly appreciate and treasure. She owns a dance studio and has five rug rats :-) ranging in ages from 4 to 17 so time is precious to her. As a result, these morning coffee hours she manages to steal for herself with me periodically are extremely meaningful and special for both of us. We are kindred spirits in love with everything from the 50's ~ music, architecture, interior design and clothing ~ and we both love the fact we are sentimental fools who delight in nostalgia. Most everything that is decor in my household is symbolic of something sentimental. I love that as it makes everything that much more personal and I am surrounded by items that bring me joy and make me smile. However, when it comes to previous relationships, especially my first marriage, that's where the sentimental feelings ends. I may still have a wedding photo tucked away of me in my wedding gown with my mom who is holding my hands, her arms outstretched, but with a frozen smile that clearly meant she was not happy with my choice of husband. It's such a beautiful picture of her though; she is young and happy, free of any health issues and stunning in a lovely aqua dress. Which is why I kept it but nothing else have I tucked away of my first marriage and previous relationships. It's not something I would share with my second husband and truth be told I get a tad jealous if any of his previous girlfriends come up in conversation. Silly I know but I definitely believe in moving on sentimental wise when it comes to previous boyfriends no matter how much fun that time in life may have been. I'm in the now phase when it comes to my hubby and all the rich and treasured memories of us as a couple of nearly 50 years are what I thrive on.
ReplyDeleteThat is beautifully written, Evelyn. And I think you're so right. It's the moments shared NOW that really are the most valuable.
DeleteI am basically sentimental but it usually relates to what connection someone or something has to me.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was growing up there was a lot of pictures taking.
I still have my parents’ formal wedding picture. and a picture of my mother with her sisters and brother and their parents. It was before cameras were in general use so it is the only photograph of her family. I would never get rid of them. It also provides a historical perspective of a different time
particularly in the formality of the way they were taken and the way they were dressed for it.
I also had many photos of my brother and me, unfortunately, at one point he took many of them so I don’t know what happened to them.
Other memorabilia varies. I haven’t looked at for a long time but when I do it brings back fond memories and makes me think about how things were then and how I have changed-even my handwriting is different.
Once these things are gone they can never be retrieved.
My brother was a big family
I find old photographs (even if I don't know the people) absolutely fascinating.
DeleteI go in stages of purging things and then usually realizing I got rid of something I needed. BUT I have saved things from my childhood/high school years that are very precious, including my diaries. So many cringe-y entries, but they serve as a great reminder why I love those awkward middle-school years and like to write stories for that age group.
ReplyDeleteI have not read my diaries in thirty years. The only one I want to keep is when the Hooligans were wee Hooligans, but it is daunting to go through the old memories. I always think I'll use them for research into teen angst but I haven't as yet.
DeleteMy mother was like a tornado. She tossed a lot of things out. She was not sentimental about handwritten reports, schoolwork, drawings. Maybe having five kids contributed to that. We have moved a number of times in my adulthood and each time we purge. Frank is much worse about saving things (high school black book?) but even he is throwing things out rather than move them. I've kept things Mom gave me from her family (little crock for butter from the farm next door?), jewelry from hers and Dad's families, Christmas ornaments our son made in school, stuff like that. I have all of Frank's letters he wrote to me, starting in 1968, all of Adrian's from when he was in Basic and deployed, and various notes I've found from Mom and Dad. They certainly don't take up much room. I had letters from one other boyfriend in the sixties, but I tossed them out at some point. Not a bad breakup, just a fading away.
ReplyDeleteFading is probably the best sort of breakup. Kind of wish that had been the case here. *sigh*
DeleteI suspect I am not very sentimental. Then again, I've made some unwise choices in dating/marriage and ended up in a couple of abusive relationships. For me, it was very cathartic to get rid of any and everything they ever touched or impacted. Sort of like erasing their footprints on my soul. Do not miss them or their stuff at all. That being said, I still have a tiny cedar jewelry box I got when I graduated from high school because I love it. I really am a less is more personality. Too much stuff is clutter and needs to be dusted, cared for, etc. Makes me shudder to think of it. Now, my best friend, who is single and not been in a serious relationship is years, has so many teacups, plates, etc. that she can go for 10-14 days before she has to run the dishwasher. Her home is filled with so many knickknacks that it makes me crazy, but it brings her joy. In the end, that is all that matters, finding your joy. -- Victoria
ReplyDeleteAgreed. No judgment here for the collectors. Living in a small house for the past 25 years has likely curbed my desire to collect anything.
DeleteI am sentimental and keep cards, letters, books, notes…When I retired last year I started, very slowly, going through books, etc. Boxes of books to our library, clothes to Bib Brother, Big Sister. Finally recycling cards. Still SO much left. Ah well -projects for next winter.
ReplyDeleteIt's true. One closet at a time - it is definitely a plodding pace to get through it all.
DeleteMy mother was definitely not a hoarder! Once when my childhood friend was visiting, she asked what had happened to the oil portraits my parents had done of my brother and me when we were (respectively) three. We found them in my parents' attic, wrapped in black bin bags.
ReplyDeleteThey now hang in our hall, so I guess I can say I'm sentimental.
Definitely. It's amazing how it swings generation from generation.
DeleteIn October 1999, we went to my parents’ house to help them begin the process of getting ready to move from the house they’d lived in for almost 50 years. I remember showing my husband something and saying, emotionally, “I made this in sixth grade!” My father died on December 1st that year so we were back up there a couple of months later to move my mom closer to us and clean out the house. I was 180 degrees the opposite of sentimental. I was saying things like, “Why bother taking pictures when people are just going to die, anyway?” (Bear in mind I had a two-year old son at this point. My husband told me we had to take pictures of him!)
ReplyDeleteI am sentimental about some things, but having moved last summer got rid of a LOT of stuff. And the knowledge that my son doesn’t want most of our stuff helped me to part with it.
But Jenn, I still have a shoebox with pictures of my college boyfriend! — Pat S
LOL! Right? I can't believe the Hooligan tossed all of it. Not for nothing, but I saved my fave picture of the two of them just because it's a great picture. Maybe I'll show it to him someday or maybe not.
DeleteLike you, Jen, I can get rid of stuff without a problem. I have nothing from old boyfriends, not that I had a lot of old boyfriends. But also... they never gave me anything worth keeping. That should have been a clue.
ReplyDeleteI do have things from my mother and ceramics my grandfather made. China my grandmother painted. Letters my other grandmother wrote to me in college (somewhere). A few gifts from The Hubby before we were married. But I cannot let go of my piano, despite the fact it does not fit in The Cottage. I think The Girl wants it. Eventually.
I was very selective about keeping things from my children's youth. Only the really important stuff.
Same. I was much more selective about the Hooligans' stuff. We'll see if it survives the next purge.
DeleteI’m a weird mishmash. I used to save everything - I wanted mementos for when I got older and started losing my memory. Well, I’ve started losing my memory and it doesn’t really bother me because I’m still making plenty of new memories.
ReplyDeleteDuring the great purge of 2019 I had a nice afternoon going through a box of stuff from my first job, thinking about the fun times, then getting rid of most everything.
On the other hand, I still have the dot matrix printouts from all my college emails from the late 80s/early 90s. Maybe going through those and sharing with the people on the other end will be my next project.
I haven’t been able to get rid of any of the afghans that my mom crocheted, even though I’m in a warm climate and don’t need a dozen afghans.
And don’t put off digitizing! My friend who lost her home in the Eaton fire only had one photo album saved - her early work years because she kept it at her office. I’m helping her digitize that now.
An old friend was over this morning before he went to work, and while sitting on Geriatric Row munching on popsicles, he said, none of both our families live in an 'old family estate'. Ours (mine) may have been of the oldest since this was our summer home, but as Jack says since we came home from Ontario which of course means I moved away and he is from Quebec, we are really come from aways. That being said we all remarked that our kids have all lived somewhere else, and there really are no connections with a place, and no boxes of stuff.
ReplyDeleteSometime Geriatric Row brings on philosophy while trying to not talk about an orange person (his son, a US veterinarian, now houses in Canada.)
Today’s young do all the sentimental writing on their bodies. Pretty painful way to remove bad relationships from your life.
ReplyDeleteSo this is rather odd, but my own Hooligan is a 25-year-old who got married last year. He's got a good job, and he and his wife were able to buy a small house- all wonderful. But he asked me privately not to throw out all his memorabilia from his years-long romance with his high school girl friend. So the stuff is hidden in my closet, and unless it's purged before I die, either he, his wife, or one of his sisters is going to find it all.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad I still have photos of a few of my old boyfriends just because they're part of my past. As for other sentimental items, almost all of them are stored in two tall, glass-fronted cabinets with six shelves each in the entry hall. A carved wooden bird that belonged to my father's mother, two tiny silver cups that belonged to my mother's mother, small things I bought myself on my trips to Sweden, the USSR, and Japan when I was 21, seashells from Puerto Rico...and much more. All objects that remind me of places or people I cared about. Eventually, it will all get thrown or given away because it doesn't mean anything to anyone but me, but I'm not ready to get rid of all those reminders of my past yet.
ReplyDelete