Random Trips Down Memory Lane

While packing up the contents of my room and preparing for the garage sale that I put off to next weekend I have been having random trips down memory lane. Random items or groups of items have brought back some wonderful/not so wonderful memories.

This all started right before I left for my trip to Wilmington. In a rush to find a printer cable at my parents house I came across an old coke bottle piggy bank that I had when I was younger (ok so it was my sisters and I stole it from her but whatever) full of notes from high school and junior high. Now I had to get them out and read them so I put them all in a ziplock bag and packed them in my carry on bag in hopes that I would read them on the plane. This goal did not happen and it wasn't until I had come back home and was trying to fall asleep one night that I was brave enough to open them.

You can tell a lot about who you were by the notes you received in the past. The ones that were particularly hard to read were from my ex-boyfriend. But I powered through and read them all and it actually brought some peace to the situation. I am not the same person I was then and neither is he. We probably wouldn't have made it this long had we stayed together but at the time I thought we would last forever. The notes did inspire a new story concept which was pretty cool. They also were embarrassing, childish and funny to read. I will be keeping them for my children to read one day and say look at what mom was like when she was your age.

Stuffed animals, cards, letters, ticket stubs, random trinkets. They are all little keys to our past. It is sometimes difficult for me to part with these items that meant enough to me at the time to keep them. In fact I was forced to clean out the boxes for the garage sale in preparation to move (luckily my parents have lots of my baby stuff stored away). The people who buy these things won't know the stories of how they got to me or the impact they made on me at the time or even now. But they will make new memories with new people and that's all that matters.

I have a strong desire to go to my parents house this weekend and pull out all the old baby photo albums and pour through them before I leave. I'm going to miss the people and the memories that random things remind me of around here but I am ready to make new memories in my new place.