I'm a hoarder. Saying it out loud sounds kinda dirty. But I am. I keep things that are supposed to be temporary thinking maybe they'll be useful again - maybe. I'm bad enough that one time when a friend obviously made a quick stop at the store to pick up a card on the way to my birthday dinner, and just stuffed it in the envelope without writing on it or signing it, I put my name on it and gave it to another friend a few days later. Why waste a clean card? Had I not been a hoarder that card wouldn't have had the chance to bring cheer to yet another happy birthdayee.
For about the last year and a half I've been using my extra bedroom as a "temporary" storage space. When my very patient former in-laws got tired of going into their attic and stepping around all my stuff, they kindly took it all out and dropped it off at my parent's house. When my parents decided to clean out their garage it was time for me to take possession of the eight or ten boxes of who knows what. So, I carried them all home, took them straight to the back bedroom and told myself I'd go through them on my next free weekend. About a year later, this past weekend, I finally did it.
Evidently I'm a longtime hoarder. Most of this stuff goes back to the 1980s at least. Why in the world would I have kept roller skate toe stoppers? I'm wondering what the significance of the yellow handkerchief is. I'll bet it used to be white. Regardless, why would I hang onto it? Keeping pictures makes sense. My yearbooks and notes from old flames and hard-researched thesis papers and certificates and diplomas and newspaper clippings, my cap and gown and school programs and trophies all make sense. But a little bag of rice?? Was this ever my wallet?
I'd forgotten that I earned a letter jacket in high school. All that work and money to Lee College so I can be a preacher and all I've got now is framed papers behind cracked glass. A silk rose... Wonder whose wedding? Pictures of Kim, Chris, Troy, Robbie, Elizabeth, Danny, Tracy, Sheri and so many other friends from so many years ago looking like I remember most of them the last time I saw them. We promised we'd stay in touch. We even put it in writing in each other's yearbooks. People don't believe me when I tell them I played two parts in "Oklahoma" one night at Madison Central High School. Now I have proof. And here, I'm wearing those famous von Trapp family curtains that Maria made for us. Fun! I was Friedrich, the oldest boy whose voice had changed although mine hadn't really, yet. Tell me I wasn't a good actor.
Hoarders aren't good at tossing things. Although my attic is a mess, the rest of my house is not a piled up depository. As a matter of fact, as much as I'm a hoarder in private, in my line-of-sight space I like things nice and orderly, without clutter. I kept the back bedroom door closed.
After I sorted through the boxes that my in-laws and my parent's had stored for me, I bought new, fresh, plastic ones and re-put the memories inside for safe keeping - again. Until I get up the nerve to take on the attic. They'll be fine.
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