Memory-Keeping: What's Worth Keeping?

 

For the last month, Ryan and I have been working nearly every evening to sort and clean out storage tubs. As some of you well know, when you make it to 45ish years old, you’ve managed to accumulate quite a stack of life-long memories. (More so, I’m sure when you make it to your 60s and beyond!) And even though we have done our best to be diligent to let go of things each time we’ve moved, we still had a lot of, well, stuff.

            Our house isn’t huge. Our storage options are minimal. And we don’t want to pay for external storage. So…what’s worth keeping? It’s been the question of the day for the last month or so.

            Today I thought I’d share with you the thought processes we’ve tried to adhere to and the principles we’ve used in deciding. They’re not foolproof. Perhaps some would work for you and others wouldn’t. But I’ll share what we’ve done and let you decide how it might work for you!

1.       Ruthlessly pick and choose what life-long memories to keep. Ryan and I learned that both our mothers kept almost everything from our childhoods – right down to every single card they received for every single baby shower. The memory-maker in me was kind of giddy about that, but the space-saver in me had to make some decisions. So as we went through the boxes, we chose to keep the things that meant the absolute most to us in our own memories. One of Ryan’s? Bubby – his little stuffed bunny that he carried everywhere as a kiddo. One of mine? The dress I was wearing when I was dedicated in church as a baby. We tried to whittle down all the childhood/high school/and pre-Shafferland memories to about six tubs combined. And it’s possible that if we go through these again in a few years, we might weed out even more.

2.       If it’s in a tub you’re probably unlikely to miss it, so don’t overthink letting it go. One of the things I learned from photo management classes is that photos in a tub aren’t being enjoyed and appreciated, so it’s almost like they don’t exist. I think that can be applied to most stored memories. When I started to feel sad or worried about things I was letting go of, I reminded myself that in some cases, I didn’t even know the items existed until this month, so I’m probably not going to miss them long-term. Items that can stay in long-term storage without being missed are probably okay to go.

3.       When in doubt, keep it. Every now and then, we encountered something we just weren’t sure we were ready to part with – so we didn’t. We kept it for now. We’ll revisit it again and maybe by then, we’ll be ready to let it go. If you have the space for it (and this doesn’t become the story for every single thing), it’s okay to keep it until you’re sure one way or the other.

4.       Honor the things that mean something to you. In my sorting, I found a photo of kindergarten Bekah, taken at a VBS. It was glued in a popsicle frame bearing the words “Jesus, I will follow you.” I kept it, because it was right around that same time that I chose to do just that – follow Jesus. I am going to keep that picture on my desk as a reminder of a pivotal time in my life. In my sorting, I found two letters from authors who inspired my own writing journey. I’ve been carefully keeping those letters for 30ish years, but what good are these letters in a box? So I framed them and Ryan is going to hang them in my office. In my sorting, I found an award I won in college, so I pulled that out to keep in my office, too. The things that mean the most shouldn’t be in storage anyway.

5.       Put the things that need work where you can reach them. I have an entire tub of pictures and memories that I keep meaning to sort and organize, but the truth is, they keep getting placed out of reach. Up high on a shelf in the garage or buried in a stack of tubs. They are now in a place I can access easily, so I can begin going through them little by little. I’m excited to do it.

So those were our guiding principles. Our rule for our home is that if something doesn’t help tell the story of us, it doesn’t stay. We’re trying to use that same idea as we sort memories. If we can’t remember or don’t know – why keep it? If it doesn’t tell the story of us, does it need to stay?

Maybe one of those things will be helpful to you! Happy memory-sorting!