A ongoing habit of mine is to throw things away.
We always max out the garbage bags and the 2 recycling containers are always overflowing by collection day.
However there are some things I struggle with tossing.
Many a time, I began the task of tackling our storage closet, that space in our home serves as a vestibule for our children's paperwork and other life items we have no other place for or that Garth refuses to toss out (Original Star Wars Memorabilia and assorted toys from his boyhood).
Opening the Storage closet is like unleashing a challenge deep within me.
In that closet lingers some great treasures..... newspaper clippings and photos my children have been featured in and some other assorted mementos of their childhoods, several packets of letters written to me over the years, Wedding and birth announcements (some not necessarily in that order) and letters from my parents sent to me while I was away at RKY camp or while they were living in the Philippines and Egypt.
There are notes that Garth gave me while we were dating, and the ticket stub for the first movie we saw together (Interview With A Vampire) and letter after letter after countless letter. Our relationship dates back to the days before the Internet, my friends.
OK, that's not entirely true........there was the Internet, but it was big and bulky.
I have boxes and boxes filled with letters and notes from high school friends that were collected during my school days. They speak of weekend plans, where we will be hanging out after school and boyfriends.
I've tried before to toss these letters. Those notes that are flimsy and thin and bent along the edges because I often carried them for weeks .... sometimes months.... in my bag or tucked away in the pages of a book.
Here's a tip.
If you have even the slightest hint of PMS, if you know you can't watch a 'Hallmark Presents' television movie because the commercials will slay you, if just the thought of puppies and kitties makes you weak DO NOT read old letters!
Seriously.
But if you do, come prepared. No half-assed box of tissue will likely do.
So, by now you're perhaps wondering if, after reading these letters, after having moments of nostalgia, if I finally tossed these old letters away.
The answer is no.
As much as I love throwing things away, there's something about this bit of trash or treasure, depending on how one wants to look at it, that I can't seem to bring myself to cart up to the recycling bin. Maybe one day.
Or perhaps not.
Silly, perhaps, but at my core, I'm a bit of a silly girl.
