Relative Something

In the process of packing up two-and-a-half decades of accumulation around our house, Cyndie has uncovered reams of precious records that document our children’s young lives. Fascinating stuff, all of it. She has an excellent ability to quickly browse through mounds of documents, which is a good thing, since she is so good at saving mounds of documents. I’m a bit more clumsy in my review. Progress would slow to a crawl if it were left for me to sort through it all.

We are at that point when it is time to choose whether to continue to save, or to finally discard. It has me wondering about the ultimate value of keeping pieces of ourselves from the past. It is a bit of a conundrum for someone with an interest in genealogy. In generations to come, such records will offer valuable insight to any descendents engaged in research of their ancestry.

Reading some of the things our children wrote for school assignments also has me thinking about what it must be like for teachers who process hundreds of kid’s thoughts, year after year. A saintly act. I have the benefit of knowing how the kids turned out, so the drama and angst of the young, developing minds is somewhat muted. I can’t imagine having to read the writings of vast numbers of frustrated students, in real-time, that teachers annually face.

The papers I found myself reading may have been assignments to practice writing, or demonstrate grammar, and seemed to capture a snapshot of a young person’s developing mind. When I read what our children wrote, I became aware of how far they have come since that time. These childhood writings no longer applied to them. It felt almost unfair to their present adult selves, to be reading what they thought back then. I say ‘almost,’ as in, not entirely. Part of me, certainly, as a parent, thoroughly enjoys the experience of witnessing the range of growth they have achieved.

If Cyndie hadn’t saved it, I wouldn’t have been given this chance.

So, do we continue saving it?

I’m torn. A large part of me is of a mind to leave all that behind and focus on living in the current moment. Most likely, if our kids don’t choose to hang on to any of it, we will pare it down to a fraction of the total, and preserve just a few pieces. A compromise, to appease the sentimental parent in both of us. However, I sense doing so would just be delaying the inevitable moment when we have reason to purge accumulation again sometime in the future.

It will be fine with me if we never have to pack for a move like this again!