old stuff: graduation swag

Recently, Husband and I undertook a spring cleaning campaign.  Which is to say that we beat back the piles of stuff that were taking over the garage, and can now actually navigate through the space without leaping over boxes and open car doors without smacking into Stuff Mountain.

As I side note, can I talk about how amazing it is to be able to actually park in one's garage?  I've had garages before, but they were always storage spaces, and having them be car-spaces is incredible.  Three words: no ice scraping.

But anyway, in this process I came across some old crap I was keeping around for purely nostalgic reasons.  Now, nostalgia is good, and memories are good.  But do I really need a box of stuff I never look at just to commemorate something?  Not really.  A picture will evoke the same memory, really.  So hey, look!  Pictures!

I'm going to go through a few of the unnecessary and purely nostalgic mementos that I came across and will be disposing of in one way or another in order to make space.

glue and glitter for grown-ups!

Exhibit A: my graduation caps.  I graduated twice with my two different undergraduate degrees, so I got to wear two outfits.  And being me, I decorated the hell outta those hats.  The super glittery one was from a math degree, and the black circles were supposed to represent the symbol for 'therefore.'  Get it, anyone?  Like when you prove stuff?  Therefore graduating?  Therefore?  Anyone?

*crickets*

Okay, so maybe it wasn't the best execution.  And I'm a nerd.  But I was the only one there rocking a glitter-tastic hat edged in six-inch purple fringe, bitches.  Oh yeah.

pretty flippin' fabulous, if you ask me

The other, flora-ridden one signified my environmental science degree.  A friend and I totally had matching tacky-silk-flower hats, too.  ALL THE TACKINESS!  Ha.

Anyway, these things are just taking up space at this point.  So I'll keep my tassles and honors cords (maybe repurpose those as curtain ties someday?  I dunno.), but do, um, something with the hats.  Maybe find a kid who likes dress-up and would groove on silly graduation hats?

I had a point!  Right.  The point is that storing bulky sentimental items is silly; you never get around to looking at them anyway, and have to deal with awkward stuff storage.  However, we humans do have a pesky tendency to get attached to our clutter, and this problem is only exacerbated when the item has a special personal-history significance.  That super-ugly throw blanket your Aunt Edna gave you for your wedding, the ratty picture your kid drew twenty years ago, the angsty journals full of teenage poetry.  And in the case of Aunt Edna, you get guilt on top of the sentimentality; what if she somehow KNEW that you got rid of a gift?  You are therefore obligated to keep forever any thing and anyone else decides should be in your house.

Bullshit.  I decide what goes in my house.  And stuff can never replace people and memories.  You swill always have the memories, with or without the stuff.

And these hats?  I enjoyed the heck outta them, but I'm not going to need them again.  I'll set them free.

It feels pretty damn good, really.

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Edit: holy crap, this is my 100th post.  Go, me!  And you, for reading!