shakespearemom

Unlike many people I know, I am not a packrat. I’ve been known to throw out stuff I really needed, merely because the need wasn’t as strong as my own need to keep my house from being cluttered.

As you can probably imagine, based on the first sentence, I’ve been cleaning out a few things. Actually, today I spent several hours going through piles of old papers, boxes, and books. One place I cleaned was my hope chest (yes, I got a hope chest when I turned sixteen–it’s actually what I asked for, and I filled it with his and hers towels, wedding dress patterns, and other stuff, just like girls traditionally did). You see, I’ve been using my hope chest as a piano bench for several months, mainly because I bought a gorgeous antique piano through Craigslist, but it didn’t come with a piano bench. The hope chest, it turns out, is precisely the right height for the piano.

My husband wasn’t thrilled by the idea, but when I started cleaning out the hope chest so that I could store my piano music in it (instead of on the floor next to the piano), he seemed a bit more excited about my use of furniture. You see, he’s a packrat, but only with his own stuff, not mine. His stuff is treasure, mine clutter. But I love him despite all that (or perhaps because of it).

So I began going through the stuff in my hope chest, and I realized quickly that it was mainly scrapbook fodder–old certificates from as far back as 4th grade, old newspaper clippings when I won art contests or was in plays, etc. The NON-packrat in me was immediately tempted to just chuck it all, without even going through it. What good would any of this do me, I asked testily? What use was any of it?

But I resisted the urge (I actually dug a bit of it out of the trash bag, right after I’d tossed it in there), and I discovered, as I sifted through it all, that there was a use in much of it. Reliving the past, especially the past where I got good grades, tried really hard, and impressed a lot of teachers, was a big boost to my ego, especially since another task I completed today was marking off the agents who had turned me down over the last month (six in total).

I also found an even greater treasure trove: letters. I found an early, sweet letter from my best friend through ninth grade (he was really cute, too). I found an old letter from an old teacher encouraging me–and I realized again, with a shock, that this teacher was no longer alive. I found a FABULOUS letter my sister had sent our grandmother, defending me and being utterly loyal to me, despite all the horrible things our parents were saying about me. My husband is reading it as I write.

I hugged the letter to me after I read it through (yes, I really did!), and I knew that sometimes a little clutter could be a very good thing. I might have tossed a few old programs, some faded news articles, and a ton of old ribbons, but I kept every single letter. Perhaps some day my great grandchildren will read through them, and they will understand who I was just a little bit more.

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