MidLife Decisions: To Throw or To Keep

Are you a saver or a thrower?  I ask that while looking at my newly framed Meet The Beatles! Album, circa 1964.  Beatles.jpg

Nice, huh?  Okay, maybe a bit fuzzy, but don’t blame me; it’s the iPhone’s fault.  And the fuzziness obscures the crummy, scuffed up, lost-half-its-value state of the album.  But still, I love it.

As I did the Beatles.  Well, Paul at least.  Ringo and George, not so much.  John–I admired John’s mind, etc. etc. etc.

When I look at this album, I’m right back in 832 Holland Hall.  My roommate, Harriet, and I have hauled our desk chairs into the middle of the room and we’re standing on them doing what I believe was called The Frug.  Anyone else remember that–or am I the oldest one here?

If I weren’t a saver, I might not be able to trip down memory lane like this.  Yeah, yeah, I know the memories are inside me, but really, I need a little provocation to truly feel and be in the moment, as it were.

Casting the eagle eye (I’m trying to see how many clichés I can get into this post) of my iPhone down a bit is this:
This is also stuff I’ve saved.  The box contains about half of my collection of half finished journals that I’ve saved over the years.    At some point, I thought posterity might want them, but that seems unlikely now.  So why am I hanging onto them?  Because they’re there.  Do you even need to ask?  The little basket has some decorative wooden shoes I bought a number of years ago.  And that green thing?  It’s an incredibly ineffective static duster.  Sometimes it’s the only duster I can lay my hands on, so that it’s highly ineffective is often moot.  And those two rolls of paper to the left–why, goodness me, don’t they look like diplomas?  Circa 1968, University of Pittsburgh.  One is mine; the other is my first husband’s.

I work very hard at throwing things out, not that you’d know that from these photos.  I come from a family that is pathological is Saving and Storing Everything. I am trying not to be as obsessive as they are, but some things, some things just demand to be kept.

Can you convince me otherwise?  Please try.

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  • http://inventingmylife.blogspot.com Liz@Inventing My Life

    When I was in college, the parents of one of my friends got divorced, and then a few years later her mother had to downsize and sell the house my friend grew up in. She had to get rid of a lot of stuff, and had the most trouble with stuff that had a lot of memories – toys and clothes from when my friend and her brother were little. Finally she laid everything out on the bed and took a picture of each and every item so she would have the memory, and then had it all hauled away.

  • http://midlifebloggers.com byjane

    Liz: That’s something the expert throwers suggest, but I just don’t think it would work for me. In this case, a photo is not worth–anything more than the paper or pixels.

  • http://metafootnotes.wordpress.com msmeta

    I tend not to be very sentimental (except about my boys), so I suppose I’m more of a thrower than a keeper. Do you ever watch “Clean Sweep” on Discovery, where a team goes in to organize a couple of rooms for clearly overwhelmed couples? My favorite part is when the uber-organizer Peter puts his arm around the most-offending spouse and attempts to get to the bottom of his/her hoarding instincts, which is usually some sort of trauma or personal difficulty. Fascinating stuff.

    Speaking of housecleaning, the old site looks GOOD, girl!

  • http://anntracy.blogspot.com/ ann tracy

    I careen wildly between needing to save everything and in my Zen moments realize that it’s only “stuff”. Right now we’ve got a garage full of stuff from old theatre shows, which we’ve got to get ride of so I can store artwork in there instead of having it clutter up the studio. We were supposed to start on it before Thanksgiving… now, it’s almost Xmas. I’m betting it will be after Jan 1st before we even start it…

    so um, don’t know what to tell you other than, maybe taking the paper stuff you can’t part with – like those diplomas – and get it all framed. so at least it will be only taking up wall space ;~D

  • http://www.simplyforties.com SimplyForties

    I’m definitely a thrower. Even at that, I’ve somehow managed to accumulate more stuff than I want and am on a mission to significantly reduce the number of my possessions! I’m single and one person doesn’t need so much stuff. My son certainly doesn’t want it.

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