Ever hear the old expression, “If you haven’t used it in more than a year, you probably don't need it”?
Really? Could that possibly be true?
Last week I began the daunting task of preparing for a tag sale. The Ultimate, Clean-it-Out, Clear-it-Out, Throw-it-Out Extravaganza. If I hadn’t used it in a year, I probably didn’t need it, right? This would be easy! Oh, the glorious space I envisioned I’d have in my walk-in storage closet!
I began my clean-up by standing in the closet, hands on hips, staring up at three tall stacks of plastic totes—each stack, four totes high. Did we really have this much stuff? I walked out and closed the door. Ah, maybe I’ll begin in my own bedroom walk-in closet. Start small, right?
I walked back upstairs and into the bedroom. Everything that could quite possibly make the “tag sale pile” was three feet over my head and the closet floor wasn’t exactly in viewable condition. Ok…solution! I placed a step-stool on what looked like the closet floor, and for an hour, precariously balanced myself atop the mound of shoes that threatened their escape from the depths of the abyss. An hour later, jubilant and smug with progress, I had myself a small pile of saleable items. A few old belts, a few pairs of jeans, a few blankets, a few handbags. That was easy!
With my enthusiasm for the Ultimate Clean-Out renewed, I felt ready to tackle those menacing totes! But first, I actually needed to haul them down from the leaning tower they’d morphed into. Hmmm…where to rent a crane? Ah, even better, I thought…I now have a husband! Better than what any heavy-equipment-rental-facility could offer me. And free, too!
After much cajoling and quite a few expletives, my husband released the totes from their uncomfortable positions. I could almost hear their lids sigh with relief. Kinda like morning commuters do when they finally reach their subway stop.
As I opened the first tote bin, ready to dig in and throw out, something took hold of me.
There I sat, thumbing through old pictures: me with huge 80s hair (God bless that decade); me at my college graduation—everyone else in beautiful dresses and high heels—with cut off shorts and black converse sneakers (God bless the 90s grunge era); and me with my platinum blond hair with two long jet black streaks running through it (God forgive me for that one!).
The pictures…I’ll always keep. Photographic representations of what life was like during those times. But it wasn’t the pictures that struck my sentimentality chord.
It was the personal mementos that I’ve held close year after year. Ten totes worth.
Sure, I made piles of things to throw away. I mean, who needs old pencils, melted candles, and tape with pushpins and thumbtacks sticking to the dispensers. I even made a recyclable pile (gotta be green!).
But when it came to assembling a pile of things to sell…well, I was stumped. The phrase kept running through my head, like a bad 80s song (God bless that decade, again), “If you haven’t used it in more than a year, you probably don't need it.” Well, what defines need?
Some of these items had been carefully placed in these totes not because I necessarily needed them, but because I wanted them. So what if I hadn’t “used” them in a year. They were part of my past, a glimpse into my history, and I “use” them when I need a reminder of a past I’ll never relive again.
As Oscar Wilde stated, “No man is rich enough to buy back his past." So true. I think we hold on to items from our past—treasured possessions as I like to call them—as a means to hold on to the past itself. It's surprising how many memories are built around the things that go completely unnoticed at the time. And perhaps these possessions aren’t necessarily what we deem so important, but rather the memories each item invokes. For these memories are a way of holding onto the things we love, the things we are, and the things we never want to lose.
What are some of the items I couldn’t seem to part with?:
The SCRUM Sweatshirt:
My brother once handed down a sweatshirt that he’d accidently brought home from a college rugby game. The opposing team was from North Adams State, and the sweatshirt stated that in clear, bold yellow letters across the front. Across the back was the term “Scrum of the Earth”. When my brother gave me this sweatshirt, it was a beautiful, dark navy…crisp and new. What a steal…literally.
I found this sweatshirt in the closet. It is no longer an appealing navy color. More like the color of the clay that masons use on school buildings. Those bold yellow letters? Gone. The front reads NO…SE. Nose? Huh. You can still read the SCRUM on the back, but the rugby ball that used to be replicated now looks like a half moon…or maybe a piece of cheese. And there are more holes in that piece of clothing than the aforementioned cheese. I guess it didn’t help that my former track teammate once ran over this sweatshirt with his sprinting spikes!
Why does this piece of material (can I even call it a sweatshirt now?) mean so much? I’m not sure. Rugby doesn’t mean anything to me. Neither does North Adams State. The word SCRUM is pretty funny. But that’s not why I’ve hung on to this sweatshirt for almost twenty years.
It’s my brother that means something to me.
We haven’t always been close. Haven’t always known the ins-and-outs of each other’s lives. But wearing that sweatshirt somehow brought me closer to him during those years. Whenever I wore that sweatshirt people would say, “Wow! That’s seen a few miles” or “Where on Earth did you get that?” Each time a comment was made about my sweatshirt, I was able to talk about its history…and with that, my brother. Over the years, as the sweatshirt broke down and became threadbare, my relationship with my brother actually became stronger. And that’s something I’m not willing to part with.
My Concert Stubs:
Music has always been of utmost importance to me.
Guess it all started with me being the first owner on my block of Michael Jackson’s Thriller album. From that point on, I’ve always been avid seeker of new music and new varieties of artists. Music is an outlet for me, and as cliché as it sounds, an important manner in which to express myself.
Along the way, I was able to find a friend who appreciates my taste in music…and my sense of humor. She and I have probably been to well over 50 shows together and even began our friendship with a fake I.D. and a fervor for a certain cover band or two.
I found most of my concert stubs held together with an old hair elastic. I hadn’t arranged them neatly in a scrapbook or even stored them in a memory box. They were held together just the way they should be…with a make-do approach and a no-care-in-the-world technique. It reminded me of our attitudes back then.
The concerts and shows we saw back then? Indescribable. But saving these little paper stubs meant more than the actual music. Each one held a hilarious story or an inside exchange amongst two friends. Stories of laughter and the building of a lifelong friendship. There are several other trinkets from this period (the Aloha Mr. Hand T-shirt, the AG hat, and the KH poster stolen like a sleuth), and I’ve saved those, too. But none compare to the tickets that allowed me entry into a priceless time of my life.
After a full week of immersing myself in the Ultimate Clean-Out process, I realized that the leaning tower was going to become a fixture in my life. These totes? They’re not going anywhere…no matter where my life takes me. I hope when I’m gone, people might say, “Boy, she sure had a lot of stuff…but, boy, she sure lived.”
As Irwin Shaw once said, “There are too many books I haven’t read, too many places I haven’t seen, too many memories I haven’t kept long enough.”
And, and damn it, I’m keeping mine. Even if I haven’t “used” them in a year…
Really? Could that possibly be true?
Last week I began the daunting task of preparing for a tag sale. The Ultimate, Clean-it-Out, Clear-it-Out, Throw-it-Out Extravaganza. If I hadn’t used it in a year, I probably didn’t need it, right? This would be easy! Oh, the glorious space I envisioned I’d have in my walk-in storage closet!
I began my clean-up by standing in the closet, hands on hips, staring up at three tall stacks of plastic totes—each stack, four totes high. Did we really have this much stuff? I walked out and closed the door. Ah, maybe I’ll begin in my own bedroom walk-in closet. Start small, right?
I walked back upstairs and into the bedroom. Everything that could quite possibly make the “tag sale pile” was three feet over my head and the closet floor wasn’t exactly in viewable condition. Ok…solution! I placed a step-stool on what looked like the closet floor, and for an hour, precariously balanced myself atop the mound of shoes that threatened their escape from the depths of the abyss. An hour later, jubilant and smug with progress, I had myself a small pile of saleable items. A few old belts, a few pairs of jeans, a few blankets, a few handbags. That was easy!
With my enthusiasm for the Ultimate Clean-Out renewed, I felt ready to tackle those menacing totes! But first, I actually needed to haul them down from the leaning tower they’d morphed into. Hmmm…where to rent a crane? Ah, even better, I thought…I now have a husband! Better than what any heavy-equipment-rental-facility could offer me. And free, too!
After much cajoling and quite a few expletives, my husband released the totes from their uncomfortable positions. I could almost hear their lids sigh with relief. Kinda like morning commuters do when they finally reach their subway stop.
As I opened the first tote bin, ready to dig in and throw out, something took hold of me.
There I sat, thumbing through old pictures: me with huge 80s hair (God bless that decade); me at my college graduation—everyone else in beautiful dresses and high heels—with cut off shorts and black converse sneakers (God bless the 90s grunge era); and me with my platinum blond hair with two long jet black streaks running through it (God forgive me for that one!).
The pictures…I’ll always keep. Photographic representations of what life was like during those times. But it wasn’t the pictures that struck my sentimentality chord.
It was the personal mementos that I’ve held close year after year. Ten totes worth.
Sure, I made piles of things to throw away. I mean, who needs old pencils, melted candles, and tape with pushpins and thumbtacks sticking to the dispensers. I even made a recyclable pile (gotta be green!).
But when it came to assembling a pile of things to sell…well, I was stumped. The phrase kept running through my head, like a bad 80s song (God bless that decade, again), “If you haven’t used it in more than a year, you probably don't need it.” Well, what defines need?
Some of these items had been carefully placed in these totes not because I necessarily needed them, but because I wanted them. So what if I hadn’t “used” them in a year. They were part of my past, a glimpse into my history, and I “use” them when I need a reminder of a past I’ll never relive again.
As Oscar Wilde stated, “No man is rich enough to buy back his past." So true. I think we hold on to items from our past—treasured possessions as I like to call them—as a means to hold on to the past itself. It's surprising how many memories are built around the things that go completely unnoticed at the time. And perhaps these possessions aren’t necessarily what we deem so important, but rather the memories each item invokes. For these memories are a way of holding onto the things we love, the things we are, and the things we never want to lose.
What are some of the items I couldn’t seem to part with?:
The SCRUM Sweatshirt:
My brother once handed down a sweatshirt that he’d accidently brought home from a college rugby game. The opposing team was from North Adams State, and the sweatshirt stated that in clear, bold yellow letters across the front. Across the back was the term “Scrum of the Earth”. When my brother gave me this sweatshirt, it was a beautiful, dark navy…crisp and new. What a steal…literally.
I found this sweatshirt in the closet. It is no longer an appealing navy color. More like the color of the clay that masons use on school buildings. Those bold yellow letters? Gone. The front reads NO…SE. Nose? Huh. You can still read the SCRUM on the back, but the rugby ball that used to be replicated now looks like a half moon…or maybe a piece of cheese. And there are more holes in that piece of clothing than the aforementioned cheese. I guess it didn’t help that my former track teammate once ran over this sweatshirt with his sprinting spikes!
Why does this piece of material (can I even call it a sweatshirt now?) mean so much? I’m not sure. Rugby doesn’t mean anything to me. Neither does North Adams State. The word SCRUM is pretty funny. But that’s not why I’ve hung on to this sweatshirt for almost twenty years.
It’s my brother that means something to me.
We haven’t always been close. Haven’t always known the ins-and-outs of each other’s lives. But wearing that sweatshirt somehow brought me closer to him during those years. Whenever I wore that sweatshirt people would say, “Wow! That’s seen a few miles” or “Where on Earth did you get that?” Each time a comment was made about my sweatshirt, I was able to talk about its history…and with that, my brother. Over the years, as the sweatshirt broke down and became threadbare, my relationship with my brother actually became stronger. And that’s something I’m not willing to part with.
My Concert Stubs:
Music has always been of utmost importance to me.
Guess it all started with me being the first owner on my block of Michael Jackson’s Thriller album. From that point on, I’ve always been avid seeker of new music and new varieties of artists. Music is an outlet for me, and as cliché as it sounds, an important manner in which to express myself.
Along the way, I was able to find a friend who appreciates my taste in music…and my sense of humor. She and I have probably been to well over 50 shows together and even began our friendship with a fake I.D. and a fervor for a certain cover band or two.
I found most of my concert stubs held together with an old hair elastic. I hadn’t arranged them neatly in a scrapbook or even stored them in a memory box. They were held together just the way they should be…with a make-do approach and a no-care-in-the-world technique. It reminded me of our attitudes back then.
The concerts and shows we saw back then? Indescribable. But saving these little paper stubs meant more than the actual music. Each one held a hilarious story or an inside exchange amongst two friends. Stories of laughter and the building of a lifelong friendship. There are several other trinkets from this period (the Aloha Mr. Hand T-shirt, the AG hat, and the KH poster stolen like a sleuth), and I’ve saved those, too. But none compare to the tickets that allowed me entry into a priceless time of my life.
After a full week of immersing myself in the Ultimate Clean-Out process, I realized that the leaning tower was going to become a fixture in my life. These totes? They’re not going anywhere…no matter where my life takes me. I hope when I’m gone, people might say, “Boy, she sure had a lot of stuff…but, boy, she sure lived.”
As Irwin Shaw once said, “There are too many books I haven’t read, too many places I haven’t seen, too many memories I haven’t kept long enough.”
And, and damn it, I’m keeping mine. Even if I haven’t “used” them in a year…
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Liza,
ReplyDeleteHey. This is Bill...the Golden Retriever blog guy. Thanks for taking a look at my pups. I'll have some newer pictures up soon. I love Golden's, too. Didn't know it until my wife, Dani, helped me decide to get one for our kids. It was a good decision. But, then, she's good like that.
And thanks, too, for your blog. I haven't read them all but the ones I have read are extremely good and moving. You're very articulate and paint a fantastic picture (and sometimes heartwrenching at the same time) of where you are and what's going on with you at specific times in your life.
I'm sorry to read about your mom but certainly touched by your transparency in sharing some of her with some of us. Thanks.
Hope all is well,
Bill