I helped a really close friend of mine go through her belongings in storage so that she could prepare to sell, give away, take back, or store elsewhere a room full of things accumulated over years and years of her life in San Francisco. You can imagine how emotional that might be. I learned from my mother to never throw anything useful away so not only do I have a lot of potentially useful stuff like boxes and paper and a million ribbons I’ll never use, but I also horde emotionally meaningful stuff.

I cleaned out the guest room the other day and happened to run into a card from an ex-boyfriend. It was so sweet and made me think fondly back to that person. I have no connection with him anymore. We didn’t stay in touch and we aren’t friends but for a few moments I felt affection for him again.

But it’s the past in the present — do I really need that? Do I really care to remember those times? What difference would it make if I never remembered them again?

The thing is that I have an awful memory so I probably won’t remember those times without the physical reminders — the ticket stubs, the journal entries, the cards I save in shoeboxes. I found a small photo of my son from when he was just a baby — a cutout of his head I must’ve meant to use for some craft or photo album. It was just the head, but I remember distinctly the photo it came from and it took me back to his babyhood. Nowadays I look at him and there’s no trace of that baby in him. He’s way too old and mature to spark that memory in me. But that’s what the photo albums are for.

I need to be a better purger of stuff. Because it’s not the things that you miss, it’s the memories that you associate with those things. And maybe you’re afraid without them those memories will disappear too — at least I am. But maybe if my memories only surface when I look at certain things, they’re not really worth recalling?