Sunday, May 29, 2011

Things are Not Memories

Tip #25: Memories are Memories, Not Things.

As the process of decluttering continues, I find myself saying such things as, "We got this on our trip to Hawaii." Or, "We've had this since we were married." The implication is that the object produces a memory of the event or time of life that it represents. Actually, that is not the case, or the object is a poor representation of the memory. Sometimes, I cannot even remember where something came from, such as, the candle holder on my dresser.

Recently I parted with a poster from my first year in college. I liked the poster very much, but it was faded, bent and lost most of its original beauty. What I discovered though was that it was the memory I wanted, not the poster. Actually, the poster in my memory was better than the original thing. Memories are memories, not the things connected to them.