Holding On...

This post is more of a ramble than a vent, thought or question......

After only two years since our wedding and me 'moving out,' my parents are excited to see that I'm finally clean out my bedroom at their house. (haha) At this point, I'm not throwing away much, just transferring to boxes to bring to my house and sort through. The goal is to get the bedroom cleaned out, furniture re-arranged, walls painted and the room looking like a guest room instead of someone's bedroom. But as I transferred drawer after drawer and shelf after shelf of 'momentos' I just kept wondering why we keep them.... Momentos. What purpose do they serve??

If you know me in person (not just in blogger world), you know that I am a huge sentimentalist. I am an emotional person and get easily attached to things because of what it reminds me of. I have kept a bunch of my old toys (along with my brother and sister) because it reminds me the innocent childhood fun we had. I have tags from Christmas that a gift from Cameron or my grandma. I have a notebook (ok.... notebooks) from school where all my girlfriends wrote notes on that back. The list goes on and on of all the stuff I've kept and become attached to.

But why?? Why do we keep this stuff? I started thinking about all this stuff and what I could to still preserve it for me later without taking all the room, but that started another problem. As I pulled them from the place that they've sat for years, I found myself touching them to remember how they felt... or smelling them to bring back that memory. Taking pictures of these things wouldn't do them justice, at least not most of them. It just wouldn't be the same.

I read that hanging onto momentos should be broken into four categories:

Would you grab it if your house was on fire?
Does is serve a purpose or have function in your home?
Do you hope to use it someday?
Does it make you happy?

Well... almost all of my stuff fits into one of these four categories and that's where my problem lies.... This stuff does make me happy. It all reminds me of a happy occassion and a simpler time... the beach, playing at my grandparents' house, grade school, and so on. Some of it I plan to use someday for my children and even a few things are so special that I would want to take them if my home was on fire..... Some of this stuff, I just can't part with right now.

So I guess for now, the boxes will be stacked in my basement until a time when newer things or things that belong to our children trump these in my sentimental mind....


Until Next Time..
Krista