Day 18 – Creating My Memory Box

I asked my husband to drag out one of the plastic containers from under the stairs so I could go through it and then use it as a memory box. You can see the contents in the top left photo:

• Certificates and awards
• Piles of fashion design drawings (I trained as a fashion designer in Italy and had a design business for a decade)
• Large folders with plastic sheets containing more art work
• Two bags of letters from when I was in Fiji on Volunteer Service Abroad
• Folders of writing and teaching materials
• Other odds and ends.

The framed certificates will find a new home in the house. All the art and design work has been scanned (took me hours) and dumped in the recycle bin. The recycle bin has just been emptied and it is already half full. While I had the scanner attached, I also went back through those tall drawers in my office and scanned all the papers and so reduced the contents even further.

I then created a memory box by going around the house and finding all the things that served no purpose but had memories that I was not ready to let go of. That emptied a few more spaces. The box now contains:

• A shoe box containing the letters from Fiji – one day I will throw them out but not quite yet
• Another shoe box of small odds and ends that people have given me (in particular my son, Dario), souvenirs from overseas, my cats ashes (housed in a beautiful box), and several antique handmade lace handkerchiefs and gloves that are too beautiful to ever get rid of
• A cherished childhood book
•  My father’s school cap and golf cup (that used to be in the secretaire I cleared on Day 12)
• Baby clothes – two sweaters I knitted, a hat he wore everywhere, his scout top covered with badges and one pair of baby leather shoes
• Two folders with the writing and teaching notes (I could scan them but it would take days)
• A few travel notebooks
• The R*by writing award trophy I won
• A round wooden box that has been in the family forever but is damaged.

I will keep the memory box out for a while in case I come across anything else to add to it because there is a bit of space left but not too much. I am going to limit myself to just this box, so if I add something that’s too big, something else will have to come out. I will have to exercise my discipline muscle.