The Things We Keep
I’ve always been a very sentimental person, ever since I was a child. I kept trinkets and dumpster dove in the university’s public recycling bin for magazines, meticulously cutting out pictures and letters for my scrapbooks. I had bags of pre-cut letters and beautiful backdrops for future scrapbooks. My mom would affectionately call me a “packrat.”
I know she meant well, but terms like that made what I kept seem frivolous. And it wasn’t to me. These were memories and moments—not just trinkets. These little items were full of wonder and joy, sparking a memory of a friend or a trip I took. I positioned them around my room like a fairy in her cottage, and I scrapbooked nearly every photo and ticket stub I collected, capturing the memory on the page.
At some point, I decided I needed a collection. And, loving both Chinese food and a little inspiration, I decided a jar full of fortune cookie fortunes would be my “thing.”
As I got older and moved around, there was little room for everything in my dorm room or my small post-college bedroom in a house with six other people. I didn’t have space for it all, and neither did my parents. They’d divorced during college, and suddenly my childhood home was being sold. I had to make quick decisions about what to keep.
I was young when those decisions happened, but I was no less saddened by the sudden loss of many of my childhood items. And while I have no regrets about what I let go of (nor do I recall much of it), I did keep a handful of items that represented my youth to me—a tiny porcelain panda and penguin that I’d put side by side as if they were holding hands, my jar of fortunes, and all my scrapbooks.
It brings me so much joy to reach in and pull out a random fortune or to sit down and admire the work and memories I put into my scrapbooks.
We collect a lifetime of memories as we age, and often a move forces us to part with sentimental items before we feel ready. There’s a new space to fit into, a house to prepare, and a date on the calendar. Suddenly, we’re being asked to sort through decades of our lives between all the other things that need doing.
That’s a lot to ask of someone.
And it’s easy for someone helping to look at an object and miss what it holds. An old ticket stub might bring you right back to a concert with your best friend (my first concert was seeing Joy Williams and Billy Gilman perform with my best friend Katie and my dad). A chipped mug might remind you of mornings at your grandmother’s kitchen table. You may have a perfectly good reason for keeping something that no one else would think twice about.
I think there’s value in giving ourselves time to understand those attachments before we have to make decisions about them. If a move is somewhere on the horizon, you might start with one small box or one shelf. An afternoon with a few familiar things can be a gentler place to begin than an entire house with a deadline.
Pick something up. Remember where it came from. If someone is helping you, tell them the story. Those conversations can help them understand what matters to you, and they can be a lovely opportunity to share a piece of your life that they might never have heard about.
As you go, you might find that a few favorite pieces capture a whole chapter of your life. You might enjoy taking photos of other items and writing down the stories that go with them. Or you may decide that you still want to keep the actual object. There’s room for all of those choices.
And when you do choose to keep something, think about how you’d like to enjoy it. Could it sit on a shelf where you’ll see it every day? Could those photos go into an album you can pull out easily? Could a small collection have a home of its own, like my jar of fortunes?
I love an organized home, but I also love a home that feels like the person who lives there. The little objects, the photos, the slightly odd collections. I understand why they’re there.
That’s part of what I bring to Golden Blooms. When we’re sorting through belongings or preparing for a move, I want to hear the stories and understand what you’d like to keep close. We can work through the decisions together and find room for the things that bring you joy.
After all these years and all those moves, I still get to reach into my jar and pull out a little slip of paper that made me happy enough to save it.
I’m very glad I kept it.
