Journey through my past thirty years–in ‘things’

….via two large boxes from home.

She warned me.  My mother sent an email after shipping off two boxes of  things she ‘would have scrapbooked but obviously won’t get to,” — the next logical conclusion was that I would want all of these ‘things.’

First of all, kudos to Mom for clutter-clearing!  Especially these ‘things’: papers of all kinds. These ‘things’ are usually the fire fodder kept in damp boxes and only opened when people consider what to do with them; too often they just get re-boxed, and perhaps labeled in a different way.

Box #1:  my first twenty years: report cards, reports, essays, My Sacrament of the Eucharist workbook, the letters my godparents wrote so they could become my godparents, pictures of people I never care to see again, programs of old plays—really, quite a load of ‘things’ that I narrowed down to one little pile to keep.  Mostly of baby things and my high school yearbook.

The interesting bits from box #1: how my godfather feels about religion (in that letter to prove he was worthy of being my godparent), the interim reports that said I would have a better grade if I did my homework or showed up for quizzes (then showed an A- average), the very conspicuously missing picture in my Eucharist workbook when they asked for a drawing of me talking to God, but the most interesting thing had to do with my high school yearbook.

I KNOW where most people are now.  It’s impossible not to; I know about my high school  acquaintance’s kids through facebook; I know their professions through LinkedIn; I know their dirty secrets through myspace and their utterly dreary thoughts through Twitter.

Even stranger, the closer I was to someone in my high school years (with one exception), the less I knew about them.  People for whom I occupied my house’s ONE phone line (remember those days) for hours–well, we weren’t even friends on facebook!  How can that be?

Perhaps for the same reason why I threw out their love notes and prom pictures without a thought.

Lesson learned from Box #1: It’s OK to block more people’s status updates on my news feeds and thank Lord I haven’t spoken to some others in years.

Now on to Box #2:

Papers.  A tour through my twenties via play programs.  Most I tossed without a thought.  I did appreciate the care with which my mother had stored them.  But they just felt like weight dragging me down–old ideas, old mild successes and some pretty large failures, lots of pieces with great memories but the work itself only served to push me into a different place artistically.  Or discover a place which I didn’t care to explore again.   Which is why they all went into the trash.

Things I kept from Box #2: a baby picture, my actual birth certificate and the program from a Macbeth production I had JUST spoken of two weeks ago.

Clutter-clearing Tip from this Experience: ALWAYS clear your clutter on trash nights.  Have the trash cans already out on the curb, if possible.  Then there’s no turning back and it’s much more of a clean slate.

And if you DO miss that dear friend to whom you haven’t spoken in years, just search for them on facebook.

A good adage for Clutter Clearing – Day 2

One very tricky thing about clearing shared clutter is that sometimes you don’t know how attached your partner is to different items.

For instance:

I have gone through three phases of streamlining my comic books, and it was down to about twenty.  Once I confirmed with my guru of all-things-comic Corey Blake that no one would pay more than $1 for mediocre Wonder Woman, or the women of Chaos Comics – poorly written but beautifully drawn, or The Maxx – which defies description, I sat down to say goodbye.

I read a few of them.  They were entertaining but I remembered most of the plots.  That’s what comes of re-reading twenty sheets over and over and over again over thirty years.

Except I haven’t touched them in at least ten, except to decide whether or not to keep them.

So I have decided to take my husband’s outlook.  When texting him to ask whether he wanted his Theatre History Lecture Notes, he said: “Overall, if you have to ask, the answer is no.”

So, as much as I love Evil Ernie, Lady Death or Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, the only comic book that made me pause was Lenore.  And so “Lenore: noogies” shall stay in my library.

If only for the ‘little bunny foo foo” story.