Its Just Stuff Anyway

The other day while out shopping with my mom something triggered memory of my childhood Matchbox car collection; perhaps it was the little biplane ornament that I bought for K. Who knows, but at any rate my stomach dropped a bit when I thought about the collection because I realized that it might be yet another one of my things that has disappeared over the years. I then got upset and cranky. I tried to keep telling myself that it is only a material thing and should not upset me. I have had this self-talk many times now since moving out of the apartment building in Minneapolis that I called home for nine years.

I do not know how some of my things got lost. I first discovered that things were missing when I moved out. I went looking all over for the glass cups that went with the punch bowl from my grandmother’s estate. I checked all the storage areas in the building, but they were nowhere to be found. Later, other possessions would pop into my mind and I would realize they were gone….”what about my metal bank collection” –gone; “what about that Bavarian flag I got in Germany?” –gone; “where is that drawing I made?” –gone; “my high school yearbooks?” –gone. I try to think that my house got hit by a fire and I lost many things. But, in the end, after trying to put it in perspective I still get sad since I have lost a part of my history. This seems to mean more to me now that baby L is around.

Some things that got “lost” I actually discarded. My high school yearbooks suffered this fate while I was doing some serious down-sizing when moving from my apartment to a newly purchased condo. I was going through some emotional angst at the time and felt that it was very cathartic to discard things. I had given up on ever having a family, so did not think of saving things to keep history for my child! As for my yearbooks, I thought “why do I want to hang onto these when I had such awful memories from that time?” I had no signatures and notes in my yearbooks because I had no friends to write them. I also thought that if I ever really wanted to look at the yearbooks again I could borrow my sister’s. However, I forgot that she is two years older than me and that a few yearbooks would thus be lost forever.

Fast forward three years, and I wish I had kept the stupid yearbooks. My 20-year high school reunion was held this past summer (I conveniently used my 8+ months pregnant state as an excuse not to go) and I had the urge to look at my yearbooks. I have also wanted to open them and see how young all the teachers probably look to me now; teachers who would have looked old to me back in high school. Maybe it is good I did not get a chance to do this since it would just fuel my newfound aging and passage-of-time phobias. Finally, baby L might someday like to see these vestiges of her mother’s past.

It is better to live in the present anyway, so I will continue to let all these things go. However, I do still want to dig through all our boxes to find my Matchbox cars that probably are not there anymore…I had the cool Matchbox car case and everything!