Emotional Cluttering

Last week was my birthday and I asked my mom to finish my big scrapbook as my present. It came out great, and it's a real kick to look at all the old pictures. But Holy Heckola, I am genetically predisposed to being a clutter fiend. My mom saves all kinds of sentimental stuff. It's crazy. It's both sweet and scary. I mean it's great that my mom has one of my kindergarten school pictures that I wrote my name on the back of in crazy cute kindergarten scrawl. But she didn't know that she had that picture until last week. I was in kindergarten 25 years ago. That memento survived 3 moves hidden in its secret envelope, so at least it was safe. But it was so safe that no one could appreciate it.

I can see myself already following in her footsteps. I opened up my old dresser and had a good walk down memory lane. There are old school pictures in there, and small souvenirs, and all kinds of "useless" mementos. And not only am I a saver, but I married a saver too. We have a box with every card the Hubster's received in the last 10 years. And since that includes graduation and our wedding, there are a lot of cards.

I don't want to get rid of the stuff, because even though I would still have the memories I actually want to be able to touch the thing that the memory is attached to. But, I need to learn how to be choosier about which things are "keep forever" quality mementos and which ones are "take a picture and put it in the scrap book" quality.

Oh and don't even get me started on "Someone gave this to us so we can't just get rid of it". That's a real hard one. We have stuff from our wedding that we will never use and can't regift. And actually can't since we don't have the boxes, not just can't because it was a wedding gift.

How do some people make it through life without getting attached to things?