There comes a time in everybody’s life when their parents finally say, “When the hell are you getting all of your old crap out of our house?” Well, maybe not quite like that, but those of us who have bounced around from rental to rental live our lives in fear of both losing our precious possessions and having to store them ourselves. That time has come for Lisa.
Tonight she came hom with 4 large Rubbermaid tubs filled with “Teen Beat” and “Bop” magazines, tour books from assorted concerts, old newspaper clippings, postcards, letters, photos, Smurfs, bracelets, and Garbage Pail Kids. It’s a veritable cornucopia of the precious nothings one collects over the course of a lifetime – in particular the part of one’s lifetime when one believes everything is worth collecting. I have smaller treasure troves myself, but the masculine side of me has prevented the overwhelming attachment to all things cute and barely memorable that has developed in Lisa.
Of course I would not dare dream of making her part with these vestiges of a life gone past. They will, however, most likely find their way to a storage facility. But there is a certain line that must be drawn. a-Ha and Duran Duran world tour books? Let’s pack ’em away. College newspapers and notes from old friends? Sure, why not? Souvenir junk from past trips? As long as they fit in a box, the more the merrier. A rubber bracelet that her hamster chew threw? Alrighty, I think we may have found where that line gets drawn…
But the real fun is in sorting through all of these snippets of yesteryear. It’s a way of briefly reliving the days when life seemed so far ahead of you. And being able to share it with someone you love who missed it the first time around, well, that’s priceless. Especially when it involves photos taken in the eighties…
Amidst all of the cute pigtailed little girls and young college co-ed pictures in which you’d swear she hadn’t aged a day since, I found the most precious photo of Lisa. Her immediate response was to deny, and then to protest that she was supposed to get a haircut that day. Quickly she scrambled for others to distract my attention, or to at least point out that it normally was that… extreme. And under penalty of death and dismemberment I will probably never be able to share that photo with you. But I swear, we’re talking at least 3.5 inches of added height, and not just by the bangs. The entire top swoops up as if Moses himself were commanding, and rises to such tremendous heights that I questioned her ability to walk through doorways.
Perhaps I will be able to share some of the adorable little girl shots, or the tame ones of her from high school in which she looks exactly the same as today! But the true prize will remain hidden, as I do not wish to relocate myself to the couch. Then again… such commanding heights… it would almost be worth it…