Keepsakes
Holding on and letting go
I’m a collector.
When I was a kid, it was Smurfs. Stickers. Keychains. Coin banks. Even Dorito bags.
I kid you not. Empty ones. I’ve always been a sucker for packaging. I kinda wish I’d saved them just to see how much the logo has changed since 1980.
Throughout adulthood, I collected (OK, technically stole) those cardboard coasters from my table at whatever bar & grill I was dining.
During our honeymoon, Craig and I bought souvenir shot glasses from every state we visited on our New England road trip—they were travel-friendly and easy to dust since they were for display and not use.
We bought shot glasses to commemorate other trips and events, too: a Dallas Mavericks basketball game. Devil’s Tower in Wyoming. Medora, North Dakota.
And, you know, books. I love being surrounded by books.
Some collections I dismantled. Gave away.
Of course, I regret it now. I gave away my Smurfs. Gave away my Shaun Cassidy records. Gave away all my coin banks but two.
I winnow down my book collection every few years. When you move as much as I have, you kind of have to.
(But, of course, I always replace what I have given away.)
My Duran Duran collection began in 1983 with the first Teen Beat magazine I’d brought to my friend Elisa’s house, and she pointed the band out to me, naming each one for me.
I was drawn to the guy wearing the fedora. (“What’s his name?”)
When it came to Duran Duran memorabilia—and at age fourteen, I wasn’t even calling it “memorabilia”—I collected what I could afford:
Pins to put on my denim jacket.
Articles from teen magazines for my scrapbook.
Posters and pinups for my bedroom walls (and eventually, ceiling).
Records.
Postcards.
I really scored when I went to a baseball card trade show with my twin brother and bought a sealed box of Topps Duran Duran trading cards for $25.
It’s still sealed. But not worth as much as I thought it would be 40 years later. (I’ve seen them on eBay for as little as $20 and as much as $170.)
And that’s from the 80s. Let’s not talk about what I’ve accumulated since then. (Although, I mean, we could. Mugs. Christmas ornaments. T-shirts.)
Then there are the one-offs—things that aren’t part of a set, but have special meaning for me, going back to childhood.
A Wonder Woman Pez dispenser.
A plush Monchichi doll.
A Cookie Monster Krazy Straw. (I don’t even remember when or where I bought it.)
My point is, the word “keepsake” was meant for people like me.
Because I’m not just keeping the item. I’m keeping the person associated with that item. The memory. The experience. The emotion.
Heck, I cried when my favorite spatula broke.
(I kinda buried the lead there: I had a favorite spatula.)
My mom used to say she never threw away handmade gifts, even if/when she no longer had any use for them, because it felt like she was throwing away the person(s) who made them.
Cue: the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
This was why I resonated with Marie Kondo’s “spark joy.” And with feng shui.
Items hold energy.
Years ago, well before Craig came into my life, my mom gave me a delicate pink silk pouch that held her and Dad’s wedding rings.
That she’d reached a point in her life when she was willing to part with them was telling.
Around Christmastime this past year, she asked me if she had given them to me. (At 93 years old, her memory is far from what it used to be.)
I asked if she wanted them back.
“Maybe,” she said.
Last night, while mentally planning my upcoming trip to New York, I decided to take them out so as not to forget to bring them with me.
So I unearthed my keepsake box.
My keepsake box is, itself, a keepsake. A purple fabric decorative box that had once been filled with travel-sized bath products, given to me by a friend almost twenty years ago.
I lifted the lid and spotted the pouch with my parents’ wedding rings immediately.
Opened the pouch. Spied the faded yellow gold bands, bonded in matrimony only by a white ribbon now.
Mom and Dad would have been married 73 years this September had they stayed together.
Of course, I decided to peruse the rest of the box’s contents, since it had been a while.
And of course, every item had a story.
My beau in college had come back to Long Island with me for Easter Break. We’d only been dating for about six weeks, but as he was falling asleep one night, he murmured that he wanted to marry me.
At the time, I thought he was the one. I believed in soulmates.
And I believed that if you lost the one, you were doomed for the rest of your life.
After all, look at my mom.
Not that she was doomed, but my father’s leaving forced her to live a different life—a life she ultimately loved and made peace with. A good life.
But a life that always missed my father.
That weekend, my beau and I went to the Walt Whitman Mall—I was probably just sharing a piece of my past with him—and we stopped into the Warner Brothers Studio Store, where I had once worked (in fact, it had been my favorite retail job).
He bought this pin and gave it to me after we left the store:
You’d think it was a diamond ring, the way I treasured it. It was a gift of affection. Of sweetness. Of simplicity.
Despite the talk of marriage, despite being in love, he and I didn’t last past the summer.
And yet, I’d mourned the loss longer than I should have. After all, I’d thought he was the one.
For years, I wore that pin on the lapels of my jackets. It was my way of keeping him. Holding on to what once had been.
And then, one day, I put it away. I was ready to let go, but not throw him away.
In 1986, I was invited to attend the New York State Summer School of the Arts (NYSSSA) at SUNY Fredonia for five weeks. I had been one of two alternates and was able to attend because another student had dropped out.
(Perhaps a post for another day: I have a lifelong pattern of “second”—born three minutes after my twin brother, understudy for the lead in the school play, second-place soccer trophies, Second Violin in the school orchestra, B-student… I was even my husband’s second wife. It’s… annoying.)
It was a big deal to be selected to attend, and, after seeing the level of talent from my peers, I knew why I was designated as an alternate.
I’d experienced tremendous homesickness, not to mention being subjected to nasty thunderstorms. Yet I also met friends that I’d kept in touch with as pen pals for years afterward (one of whom kept forgetting my name and calling me “Elsie”; eventually I stopped correcting her, and it became endearing).
We visited a museum, and I saw a Warhol soup cans painting. We attended a festival in the town of Chatauqua. We went to Niagara Falls.
And I learned a lot.
At the time, I’d thought I’d done my best work as an artist. Yet when I showed the work to the high school art teacher who’d encouraged me to apply, he looked at it, then me, and said, “This was your best work?”
You’d think something like that would have crushed me, but deep down, I knew he was right to be underwhelmed. I’d held back from my full potential, mainly because I’d never had the confidence as an artist as I do as a writer.
The artwork sat in a portfolio in my mother’s basement for almost twenty years before I finally took it all to the recycling center and tossed it into the dumpster.
I had no attachment to it anymore. Didn’t think the work was good. Wasn’t worth keeping. I was OK with not being an artist.
But, forty years later, I still have this pin despite having no memory of obtaining it—had there been an orientation? A welcome packet?
I never tried to find those friends/pen pals on Facebook. I occasionally wonder about the teachers—I only remember two of their names—how old they were then, how old they are now, if they’re still alive.
I wished I’d been more adventurous and less homesick. I wish I’d been more confident.
But I was proud to have gone. To have been chosen.
And then, there’s this:
My twin brother’s wife (or, as I refer to her, my wombmate-in-law) gave this pendant to me on my 45th birthday.
I’d been getting over the heartbreak of a romance that was over before it even began.
Determined not to mourn him for even a fraction of the time I’d mourned my college beau, I immersed myself in writing a novel that made me laugh, going to the beach, playing with my grandnephew, and… well, living life joyfully.
It worked. I’d reached a point where I was content. Where I knew I’d be OK no matter what.
Subsequently, the romance had a second chance. And even though I no longer believed in the one, I was all in on this romance.
This marriage.
Also in the keepsake box:
A watch that belonged to my paternal grandmother, given to me by my father.
A necklace made by my friend Jon (now deceased), given to me by Craig for Valentine’s Day. (I associate it more with Jon than Craig these days)
A keychain commemorating Memorial Junior High School, which closed in 1984.
A stork shears clip that I purchased at the New York Beauty Expo in the early 1990s, when I worked as a nail technician.
To name a few.
I’m well aware that at some point, I am going to have to get rid of my collections.
Because at the end of the day, it’s stuff.
Even with the memories and emotions and energy.
No doubt, my living space will continue to shrink, as it has in the last two years.
I have no children. My nieces and nephews, to my knowledge, do not possess the same attachments to things that I do.
When I am gone, will they want a reminder that I was once here? Will they want something to keep?
I have often considered donating my Duran Duran memorabilia to my friend Andy’s archive. And yet, every time I think about actually parting with it, I prematurely mourn the loss.
I can’t bring myself to decide what to keep and what to donate.
What will become of my collection of tote bags? Or Swatches? Or tarot decks?
What will become of my Wakko Warner enamel pin? Of my NYSSSA pin?
What will become of the West Wing pilot script inscribed and signed by Aaron Sorkin?
Or the comic book my twin brother made for me for Christmas well over 20 years ago?
What will become of the shot glasses, which are packed away, in storage?
And the kicker:
Soon, in the near future, I will have a little pouch of my own, holding Craig’s and my wedding rings, tied together with a ribbon.
I will keep them for the rest of my life, recalling how I was forced to live a different life.
A good life. One that I ultimately loved and made peace with, where I knew I would be OK no matter what.
You write so beautifully, my friend. In my years as a professional organizer, I worked with lots of clients who questioned their instincts to hold on or let go. It isn't easy, and it isn't one-size-fits-all. It's a squeezing of your heart, a fear of forgetting, a tough look at what the object is, what it meant, and what story it might still be telling you. Xx
Hold on to these things! I totally get it. I was livid when my parents moved and my dad chucked so many items like these without asking first. "It's just junk!" This from the person, who, in the same move, took Reagan era sun lotion (it was 2006). "But we might use that!" Arrrrrrrgh!