Driven by the fear that one of my in-laws (or worse one of my friends) will nominate me for one of those hoarding programs I cleaned my house for my summer vacation. I did a fairly good job of ridding the closet and chest of drawers of old clothes as I never have really had attachments to clothing. After calculating that I will probably only read another 1,350 books I even winnowed the bookcases of books I will never read. I was slightly less successful at paring down my fabric stash but I still managed a respectable 2 ½ bags worth. What has me flummoxed though are a couple of old address books.
One of these belonged to my mother. I already know all the addresses of the people I need to so I am not sure why I can’t simply throw this one into recycle. Maybe it is because if I do it is one less link I have with her. My mother always had beautiful handwriting and it is the last thing of hers that still has her handwriting in it. Maybe it is because I watched one too many of those find your ancestors shows where they talk about finding a diary etc. that prevents me from throwing it away. Regardless of the reason why though I have left it on its shelf for now.
The second address book is one I had in high school and I look at some of the names and have absolutely no idea who some of these people were. It is kind of fun for me to see the name of my old freshman crush or to remember that my good friend in high school had the same birthday as my dad or to try and remember just who Debbie Williams was or why I would have known anyone in Iowa back in the 80s. I’ll keep this one for the puzzle value for awhile but it will be easier to dispose of it once the novelty has worn off. It is rather frightening though to know that old age has crept in to an extent that I no longer remember old friends. It makes me wonder what else I’ll eventually forget. Maybe this is why we keep so much stuff, they work as mnemonic aids. We’ll see if, in another twenty years, I remember any of the names at all.
