I sifted through the pages of my second grade notebook labeled “Social Studies” in handsomely heinous handwriting, re-educating myself on the founding of the New World via a poorly written paragraph on Christopher Columbus. It seemed silly to me to throw away the milk-stained spiral one-subject as it still served an educational purpose fourteen years after its pages were filled. When I turned it over to examine the cardboard on the back, I noticed with approval the improvement I’ve made over the years in the precision of my three-dimensional doodles. I then moved the entirety of my elementary school notebooks and folders to the “keep” pile, assuming each one held the same hidden treasure of history lessons long forgotten and documented personal progress of mindless sketches.
To an outside party, it would appear as if this purge of “stuff” from my childhood room was going rather poorly as only one item presently lay in the “give away” pile – an old purple sweater with three Snapple-cap-sized holes under the neckline. It was far too small and had clearly unsuccessful attempts by my ten year-old self to mend the irreparable damage, yet it still pained me to part with the frayed mess of crochet. I knew that one day, years from now, I would get invited to some themed party where I would have to dress like a homeless person and entirely regret the decision to give away this perfect item for my costume. Instead, I would be forced to spend ten dollars ruining another sweater I obtained from Goodwill and it would end up all wrong, making me look much too faux homeless instead of authentic, genuine homeless.
I looked at the “keep pile” with frustration. I was honestly confused as to how I had so many things. It was a dichotomy between my want for the poetic beauty of minimalism and my God-given talent to convince myself that a bag of half-used erasers I obtained at a truck stop on my way to Disney World in 2005 was worth saving for my unborn nieces and nephews when it rolls around to their back-to-school season. Each time I attempted to remove a shoe box of an old sticker book collection or the pile of disheveled yarn from that one time I tried and failed miserably to knit a pair of booties for my baby cousin who I’m pretty sure is entering the seventh grade in September, I couldn’t bring myself to let go of the itemized, physical history of my life. I held in my hands the tangible memories that culminated into the person sitting before them. Every discarded project or half-hearted collection told an unwritten story, even if I had little to no recollection of said story likely due to suppressed childhood memories that I have no intent on revisiting in this life.
The crux of the struggle of attaching oneself to the sentiment of materials, besides lack of storage and inability to navigate the disorganized, burgeoning treasure trove, is the inherent inclination to fixate on the past rather than move forward into the not-so-faraway future. The fear of forgetting is too often an impediment of taking these experiences that these items represent, allowing them to serve their transient purpose, and letting them go to symbolically make room for everything to come.
Thus, it only made sense to move the bag of Floridian erasers to the pile with the homeless sweater. If I’m being honest with myself, my future nieces and nephews will probably enjoy the novelty event of picking out their own erasers at the truck stop back from Disney.
