I’m not sure if it was the early morning sunshine dazzling my brain or maybe some freak organization gene from the mothership had, after nearly thirty years, chosen to surface but I decided this week I would sort through my memory box(es) and it would appear I am a little bit of a secret hoarder.
Sorting through the piles of letters, photos and random oddments, I couldn’t help but smile. I saw before me a life filled with adventures, friendships and dreams achieved, that I didn’t always fully appreciate. Endless wrist bands from summers spent at festivals, air line ticket stubs from flights I had long since been on, along with faded receipts and past birthday cards. I had kept them all, shoved into boxes and bags, it was a life, in memories, laid on the floor like a Jackson Pollock collage attempt. Tears and laughter filled me as I read nearly twenty five years worth of letter writing to my oldest friend. These hand written letters (often with pictures!) detail our childhood dreams in scarily graphic detail. The nick names we had for each other, the jokes we shared and boys we fancied were all documented. Clearly mini feminists, neither of us wanted a boyfriend. Instead we were felt adoption was the way forward. This was of course once we had returned from travelling the world together. In a caravenette. Funny how turning into teenagers changed those plans somewhat!
There was, as every memory box has, the last scraps of old relationships. Flicking briefly through scrap books of memories ex boyfriends had made me, piles of hand written cards containing long ago broken promises and travel books for all the places we talked of going but never made it to. I realised the tears had long since dried from the disappointments these relationships had left me with, so why do we hold on to these things? Looking at faded receipts of restaurants we had been to, cinema tickets from my first date (that would have been Independence Day then) and the chewing gum wrapper I had kept my from when my first crush had given me a piece from his packet, I realised that some memories were fine in your head or shared over vino with girls. They no longer really had a place in my memory box.
Moving on to flicking through piles of photographs (yep paper photos that were developed from disposable cameras!!), giggling at my University days and somewhat astounded at how composed and glamorous we looked at 21 years old. Whilst most of the pictures aren’t the sort you would show your mother, the memories and giggles were fantastic. Looking at our 21 years old self’s , fresh from full time education, all you really have to go into the real world with is idealistic dreams, hope and (if you’re lucky) good skin. Without a real sense of style, class or who you are, it’s like being a teenager in an adult body - full time work, adult relationships and really growing up is all part of the next 10 years journey.
As I looked at all the memories that I had saved over the years, all the things that had changed and all the things that had been learnt from were staring straight back at me. Every card and picture told a story of which we were so certain that these were our concrete plans, totally unaware that life had other ideas for us. But what surprised me the most was what hasn’t changed over all these years. Who we are doesn’t ever really change, as in the true essence of us. Yes we move goals, achieve dreams and aim higher in the next dream but the person we are remains the same. With my memory box cleared out , space has been created for new memories to be made.As I sorted through what to send to the recycling and what to keep I can only hope the next thirty years are as amazing, laughter filled, fun times as these first thirty have been xX
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