I must make a confession. I am a pack rat in a bad way - not in a way that could land me a starring role on the show Hoarder’s kind of way – but still pretty bad. I have mementos of every decade I believe and on occasion find one tucked away here and there. Not too long ago I was looking for something in the family community storage building and I found a box that had been battered and beaten through time. It was marked in teenage handwriting “APRIL’S – PERSONAL – DO NOT OPEN!” Well first of all – apparently I thought I must have been under some ridiculous misconception that just because I wrote it in capital letters that would emphasize that I meant business and it wouldn’t be opened. (Yeah right – with two brothers who would have loved to have gotten something on me to embarrass me with and a mother and father who cared too much about what I did – I’m sure it wasn’t opened). I looked at the box a few and of course over the span of (X) amount of years I had completely forgotten about the box and its contents. I shuddered for a moment at the thoughts that it could contain something that could leak out to the press should I ever run for office. So I dusted it off and opened up. Inside of it must have been every note that I wrote and received in school. There were old love letters and notes to and from my friends that we had evidently passed to each other in class while the teacher had their back turned. I must have stood there and read notes for half an hour. There I was by myself grinning like a Cheshire cat at some of the memories. What a pleasant surprise that flashback of memories was!
I got to thinking about my kids and wondering if 30 years from what they will have to look back on. With the world of technology being much more advanced than it was back then the only communication that they have is text messaging and social media. It made me kind of sad to think that one day when they stumble across a box from the past that it won’t hold precious possessions like the one that I had found.
One of my favorite things to come across is something that represents a memory. It brings to mind things that otherwise I had just forgotten about. That secret cardboard treasure chest that I had discovered held in it pinkie-promise secret crushes that us girls talked about and from the heart emotions that we only confided in one another with. Today all the secrets are in found on the kid’s smart phones and deleted when the memory starts to get too full. And when they do delete it – it’s gone – buried in a cyber graveyard never to been seen again and certainly not to be reflected back on a few decades down the road from now.
I love to find little notes that my kids used to write me when they were in elementary school and would leave on my pillow or stick on the fridge. Now they just send me text messages that I have to lock to make sure I don’t delete them and if I get a new phone then they are gone for good.
Some times technology is a good thing. I love being able to catch up on Facebook, post a new picture on Instagram and Google what I need to know. But sometimes I just like to have a crumpled up old piece of paper handwritten by someone special. It just seems to have more of an impact.
The other day I was putting away some clothes in the kid’s bedrooms. I opened one of my daughter Kailee’s drawers and in moving some stuff around to make room I can across a sheet of paper all folded up. Thinking it was an old assignment or a test she thought I didn’t need to see I opened it up. Low and behold it was a note that she had passed back and forth in class with one of her girlfriends obviously quite a few years ago (judging by the writing). I couldn’t believe my eyes! I just giggled to myself, folded it back up and stuck it back where I found it and smiled at the thought of what that little piece of paper will mean to her when she finds it one day. I hope that she will smile and consider it a treasure too.
