Keeper Sentimentality vs. Thrower Practicality
I am a terribly conflicted combination of my mother, a self-proclaimed thrower, and my father, whom my mom proclaims is a keeper. (For some reason throwers are very proud of their ability to purge, while keepers never see themselves as such.) Let’s clarify that I do not mean a keeper in the sense of, “Wow, Sue, you should hold onto him, he’s a keeper,”–although I do believe that to be the case as well. My dad is a keeper, a pack rat, a collector—call it what you will, he has trouble parting with “things.” He’s hanging on to clothes that pre-date a Bush in the White House, and, unfortunately, sometimes wearing them. My mom does what she can to help my dad stay organized and get rid of the truly unnecessary. But lest you think my dad is the one with the problem, sometimes my mom’s thrower mentality takes a bad turn. I’m still lamenting my favorite “I Love New York” t-shirt that “mysteriously” disappeared one winter and didn’t make it back into my drawer come summer. I repeatedly asked my mother where my favorite t-shirt could possibly be, only to get vague, “I’m not exactly sure…” responses. In 1985, I might have been naïve to what she was capable of. Almost 20 years later, I am wise to her and let the truth now be known–I was a victim of my mother’s throwing zealousness.

I've discovered that I am both my mother and my father’s child (if that’s not profound, I don’t know what is), and therefore, have the internal struggle of keeper sentimentality vs. thrower practicality. I have bags/boxes of cards and letters that people have sent me over the years. Do I ever go back through them and read them? No. Might I someday when I’m 72? Well, I’d at least like the option to do so. I have t-shirts in boxes that I don't wear because each one has a specific memory or sentiment tied to it. But I also have these moments once in awhile, where if I don’t go through and get rid of some things, I will go crazy. I’m not sure what instigated it this time. Maybe it was the episode of Clean Sweep I watched recently on TLC. Or maybe it was my mother’s genes showing their brute force. Needing to rearrange my spare room to fit in a new chair before company comes this weekend, I became overwhelmed with the desire to go through the stuff I had filling my closet and my desk—and to purge the unnecessary. Notebooks full of lecture notes, tests, and papers from college were found simply taking up space, waiting, I suppose, to be read and found important once again. What exactly was I keeping these things for? Did I think there were going to be more tests at reunion? “Ok, we know you’ve already graduated, but we’re going to need you to prove you actually learned something while you were here.” (Unfortunately as I perused some of my Economics tests, I began to question whether I actually did learn anything in college except how to drive stick shift. What in the world do all these acronyms mean?! Apparently I knew at one point.) So, after hours of sitting amongst junk this past Saturday, making “keep” and “throw” piles as the rain poured down outside, I now feel sufficiently organized, and have thus created more room to house the new things I collect that I just cannot part with. Now, if just had my New York t-shirt back.