Keeper of the Stuff

Shameless admission follows...

I keep stuff. That's right. I keep it. I don't collect it or gather it or even necessarily purchase it, but I keep it. You know, all the junk that people give you as little joke gifts. Little presents from nieces and nephews that serve absolutely no purpose and are of no monetary value. Yep, I got it all.

Little McDonald's Happy Meal toys (still in the wrapper no less) of animated movie characters. Little figurines of dogs, cats, squirrels, elephants (I've almost got the entire animal selection offered by the St. Louis Zoo). I've got little inflatable toys that may or not still hold air. I have little nuts and bolts that go to something somewhere that will never be used.

Why do I have all of this junk? I told you - I keep stuff.

Some of it is more understandable than others. For instance, I have the birthday card my grandmother gave me 9 months before she passed on. That makes sense - it's sentimental junk. And yes, I readily admit to being quite the sentimental guy. But over the years all of this stuff adds up.

Last night I decided to begin sifting through this mass of stuff to see what I could get rid of. It's a hard task. It's very time consuming. It can be emotionally draining. But it is something I have needed to do for a very long time.

I went through all the presents and small junk pretty quickly. Then it was on to the harder stuff. Letters, cards, notes. This stuff takes forever to go through. You have to open up the card to see what it is, or perhaps it's a letter in an envelope which requires extra time. Each piece adds up and suddenly you have spent an hour going through a handful of items.

So last night I went through a box that was filled with notes from friends and past flames. It's quite a thing to sit down and read what was going on in your life 10 years ago. I think it can be healthy to a point. However, I also feel that I need to move beyond that and clean out these remanants of my past. So tonight I plan on finishing this task by showing all of these letters to the trash can. I refuse to live in the past, so why should I keep letters from people in my past?

Now don't get me wrong here. I will keep some of the sentimental cards and letters from family and friends, but the other junk is going away. It's a rainy week, so I figure I may as well clean out my junk while I don't have the option to go outside and do anything else...