To Save, or Not to Save

Have you seen the show “Clean Sweep” or “Hoarders”? I'm not quite that bad, but I'm a clutter-bug, a girl with many piles in many places. There's never enough time to finish whatever project I'm working on, but then I need the table for something (say, serving dinner) so I sweep the paper storm into a pile and put it somewhere. This event then repeats itself over and over. Pretty soon all the chairs in the “pretty room” (that's what my boys called it when they were young and it stuck, it's just a living room, but no toys allowed, those go to the family room, or their own room) are stacked with precariously perched piles of paper. Deciding what to save, to what to file, what to shred and what to just recycle seems like a daunting task when you survey the scenery.

The problem isn't so much lack of motivation (because clutter drives me nuts and makes me feel even more claustrophobic) or time (I'm no longer homeschooling {yippee yippee joy joy dance}) it's the deciding. Am I ever going to look at this program again (like the one I got from attending The Nutcracker where my friends daughter was dancing)? No, I'm not. But suppose her mother is making a scrapbook for her when she becomes a prima ballerina one day. She might need it if she lost hers. So give it to her, you say. No! She has one! She doesn't need mine now, but boy would I be the hero if she needed one later and I still had mine!

I'm thinking you're catching on to my dilemma here. Why save that letter from Grandma? It's just taking up space. You know she loves you, and you love her. Now fast forward to her funeral, and you're making those posters of the deceased's life, and there is a letter she wrote to her granddaughter. In fact, it's the last letter she ever wrote because very shortly after that, Alzheimers stole her brain. It's now a precious keepsake, and you're so happy to have it.

What should I save of mine? I have ticket stubs: first time I saw Bruce Springsteen in concert, front row at the downtown historic movie theater where my uncle took us to the premiere of “The Empire Strikes Back.” I know I don't need them. I have the memories. Well, for know. With my medical issues, I don't know how long until someone steals MY brain.

Then I fast -forward to some future relative of mine, sorting through all my piles, and finding those ticket stubs and thinking, “Wow, she was around for THAT!” I know it's not a moon landing or anything of that scope, but it was an occasion that was important to me.

For my last point, I do have a counter-example. I write poetry. Have since I was in about 5^th grade. I have journal after journal with poems and rants and raves and excited to just be alive entries when love was in full bloom. Those I'd rather others not see. As a human person, I'm not perfect, and some of the events described in detail aren’t for consumption by family members. Skeletons in the closet, described in the journal.

Ok, just one more example. When my mother was in college, a friend dragged her to hear some poet read his poems in one of the lecture halls on campus. I really wish she'd saved the program. It was in the early 60s, and the poet was Robert Frost.

How do you handle this issue? What do you save? What never makes it home? How do you store the treasures? I'd love to hear what you do.