My boyfriend stayed with my family for a month -- God bless him -- for a vacation, and then I kept him longer for a few normal days together once we got back. Over this time, he had commented on how much stuff my family and I had.

Now, I know it is too much and I've gotten rid of probably half or more of my closet since the start of summer and I still have too much, but I've never put much thought into why. Before I went to bed one night this week, I was thinking about what he had said and what I actually had in my room and I realized why my room was a mess (besides everything simply being on the floor): I collect memories.

I lived in Miami, Florida for six years. My family was there the summer before fifth grade up until the summer before my junior year of high school. Before we left, one of my best friends at the time gave me a blue Toms shoe box. It had a cute little pen, a bow, a picture, a few other things and a letter explaining what each thing was. It was my first memory box.

When I was packing my room in Miami, I made another box specifically for my Florida memories: my eighth grade "prom" picture in the frame the school gave us, our entire class photo, t-shirts, pictures, the watch I ran cross country/track and field with—just stuff that reminded me of my time there. Even now, knowing I barely take that box out, I have trouble letting it go when I probably should.

I have a Georgia box going now too. It's in a running shoe box because I got better at running, dropping over eight minutes for a 5k in one season. It has my corsage and the ribbon I wore in lieu of a necklace for my senior prom, movie tickets from my birthday and dates with my boyfriend, pictures, wristbands from my first venture into a college bar, water park tickets and other pieces of the last five years in Georgia.

I have told myself that I should let it all go, that all the boxes do is take up space in my room that I don't have, they need to go so I can organize things better, I don't need them. But part of me does. Even if I don't look at them, the things in those boxes made me who I am. They link to the people and memories that made me what I am today. The difficulty in letting the boxes and what is in them go lies in the idea that I won't have those reminders of who I am and where I came from. I know that I am a pack rat and, while my identity does not rest in the things I have, the mass accumulation of perceived junk is representative of me and my story. How do you just throw that away?