I collect…memories

Being back home has taken me down a long lane of organizing. There is so much of my stuff every where. When I finish one luggage  I am told there is another luggage with my stuff. Yes I do have a lot of junk that I do not need and have gotten rid of some. When I go back to school I will do another run of things I need and things I don’t.

But there are some things that look like junk to other people, but are so special to me. Today I was going through my teddy bears. My grandmother told me to take a bag and throw them out. I understand that I am eighteen and “too old” for stuffed animals. But i do not collect teddy bears, i collect memories. As I held each stuffed animal to organized it, I traveled down memory lane. I saw the teddy bear that my first boyfriend gave me, the fish that I won in those machines in the movie theaters, a dog I won my first time in play land, the whinnie the pooh I got for my eighth grade graduation, the elephant i won with my keys to success in middle school, and the huge elephant my brother won me in six flags about eight years ago.

I have a princess memory box with items like notes that people gave to me, books, awards, trophies, hotel wrist bands, photos, birthday cards, and flowers from different parts in my life and different people. Some I still talk to today and others whose faces I cannot remember.

See I don’t just collect teddy bears or random pieces of paper or wrist bands. I collect memories. So that when i am older there is literally a piece of myself and the past that I could hold on to.