"Memory" Stuff

[CeciliaW]

Speaking of memories, I'd just recently shared a picture that said, Sometimes the only thing left is a memory. Make sure it's a good one.

In this morning's email is a letter from a man I dated in high school. 41 years ago.

I'm pretty sure this needs to stay in my 'memories' and not come into this time in my life.

*my brain feels funny*

[fidgiegirl]

Speaking of memories, I'd just recently shared a picture that said, Sometimes the only thing left is a memory. Make sure it's a good one.

In this morning's email is a letter from a man I dated in high school. 41 years ago.

I'm pretty sure this needs to stay in my 'memories' and not come into this time in my life.

*my brain feels funny*

Ooh, yeah, I can see that!! I wouldn't want that to happen, either.

[early morning]

Ok, this may sound strange, but I'm voting for keeping. My mom is 94. For years she has not wanted to look at old photos, yearbooks, etc, but she kept them. Now, nothing brings her greater joy than to go through old photos, yearbooks, letters - and share her memories with us, her children. While she does not always remember what happened yesterday, revisiting her past is happy and comfortable for her and is a way she can connect with her surviving siblings and with visiting children (who are now OLD, lol) of her friends. She can share old photos with people who LOVE having a picture of their Mom/Dad as a child, and they trigger memories otherwise untapped. Hopefully, we will ALL be old someday!

[bunnys]

em--I agree. I can't imagine all that stuff takes up that much room, anyway. There is so much other space sucking junk we buy and collect that has no meaning that we need to get rid of.

[saguaro]

Before I moved to my studio apartment, I got rid of all but one of my high-school and college yearbooks. I'd carted them around for decades even though I rarely looked at them -- in fact, most times, they were in the unopened carton from the previous move. But until that apartment, I'd always had somewhere to stash them and not miss the space. I only regret that I didn't think to offer the 'books to the respective schools or Classmates.com or such for the sake of their historical interest in them. But that's not where I was emotionally at the time, so I let it go.

Well I am off work through the end of the year and since I am dedicating my time off to decluttering, so this thread is quite timely.

I had eight yearbooks, four from high school and four from college, sitting in my garage for years. Because that's how far they got when I moved them from my folks' house 10 years ago. Looked through them and just discarded all of the college ones (seriously) and kept two of my high school books from junior and senior year for now. Not sure if I will keep those or not. Also got rid of the "Who's Who Among America's High School Students" book that my Mom insisted I get because I made the book in my senior year. Never ever looked at that book.

Now going through old cards and photos......

[rose]

Ok, this may sound strange, but I'm voting for keeping. My mom is 94. For years she has not wanted to look at old photos, yearbooks, etc, but she kept them. Now, nothing brings her greater joy than to go through old photos, yearbooks, letters - and share her memories with us, her children. While she does not always remember what happened yesterday, revisiting her past is happy and comfortable for her and is a way she can connect with her surviving siblings and with visiting children (who are now OLD, lol) of her friends. She can share old photos with people who LOVE having a picture of their Mom/Dad as a child, and they trigger memories otherwise untapped. Hopefully, we will ALL be old someday!

I am glad to hear that someone looks at their albums. My mom didn't and wouldn't let us dig out old pictures when she was alive. My mom's elderly neighbor was tossing photos because she didn't think anyone wanted them. I asked her...."isn't that why we save these pictures so we can look at them when we get older?". She said she wasn't really interested in them so it was easy to toss. Then I ask myself why I keep all my photos and keep taking them. I have albums from trips that no one else would be interested in. Will I look at them when I get old? I hope so! I don't look at them now but I guess I think I'm too busy with other things.

[maryellen]

It's truly a very personal decision and also feeds us on an emotional level, so I think we should take that into account when ruthlessly decluttering. I think that it's a good thing to maintain threads to our past lives - at least the good parts. My solution has been to store things in our file cabinets in folders. I label plastic page protectors for a year or 2 or 3, and then insert the best of the best for that period. No yearbooks in there, but letters, cards, special announcements etc. It really doesn't take up much space in our small house. I keep the larger things like scans of sentimental photographs in a digital format. After about 10 years, I find that I really do re-visit these...possibly because it's a small collection.