There are keepsakes, and there are things people gave you - slightly different issues. I was surprised to find that a lot of my friends don't remember what they gave me - I wore a shirt I've never liked (it has fake Indian designs, in gold fake leather, no less) to a gathering of friends (we used to give each other gifts on our birthdays). The woman who gave it to me admired it; I told her she gave it to me, but she did not remember that. I wore the shirt out of guilt, because I never wore, and wanted to please the giver. I now feel much better about getting rid of gifts I don't like or have no use for. Clothing, books, nick-nacks - they will all go as I work on the sections of the house they now live in.
Keepsakes also have categories - family heirlooms, and things remembered. For example, I have a set of Bavarian china cups and saucers that belonged to my great-grandmother, or possibly one before that. They are beautiful, but were very seldom used because they are fragile, and not very large. My family drinks coffee in quantity, not as an after-dinner rite. My mother would be very upset if I got rid of them. I would feel a bit of guilt as well, although I've never used them since they came to me. This kind of thing is hard to deal with, but if you have just a few of these things they can be managed.
What's difficult is things remembered from childhood. Books, of course, are a category in themselves, and have issues other than keepsakes. But keepsakes of memory are a problem. My SO insists on keeping a couple of cloth napkins printed with strawberries. His sister foisted them on us when we cleared his family's house, but the SO remembers the napkins being used when his mother decided to set a fancy table, and says he's seen them all his life. I have a little decorative pitcher that I remember from my childhood that I am keeping, so far. The number has to be kept down, and limited to reason. I recently threw away some glass jam jars I kept because they were an unusual shape, and I thought I would use them to keep herbs or spices, or something like that. I did not use them much, but they had been around, moving from place to place, for 30 years. I was keeping them because I continued to believe they would some day be useful, and they were pretty to look at, and they reminded me of the time in my life I was into that sort of life and decorative kitchen. The jam company, I think it was Crabtree and Evelyn, does not use that sort of jar now, so they had become irreplaceable in my mind.
This became more of babble than I intended. Maybe I need to think about a post as well
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branchandroot
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Date: 2011-01-02 07:22 pm (UTC)Keepsakes also have categories - family heirlooms, and things remembered. For example, I have a set of Bavarian china cups and saucers that belonged to my great-grandmother, or possibly one before that. They are beautiful, but were very seldom used because they are fragile, and not very large. My family drinks coffee in quantity, not as an after-dinner rite. My mother would be very upset if I got rid of them. I would feel a bit of guilt as well, although I've never used them since they came to me. This kind of thing is hard to deal with, but if you have just a few of these things they can be managed.
What's difficult is things remembered from childhood. Books, of course, are a category in themselves, and have issues other than keepsakes. But keepsakes of memory are a problem. My SO insists on keeping a couple of cloth napkins printed with strawberries. His sister foisted them on us when we cleared his family's house, but the SO remembers the napkins being used when his mother decided to set a fancy table, and says he's seen them all his life. I have a little decorative pitcher that I remember from my childhood that I am keeping, so far. The number has to be kept down, and limited to reason. I recently threw away some glass jam jars I kept because they were an unusual shape, and I thought I would use them to keep herbs or spices, or something like that. I did not use them much, but they had been around, moving from place to place, for 30 years. I was keeping them because I continued to believe they would some day be useful, and they were pretty to look at, and they reminded me of the time in my life I was into that sort of life and decorative kitchen. The jam company, I think it was Crabtree and Evelyn, does not use that sort of jar now, so they had become irreplaceable in my mind.
This became more of babble than I intended. Maybe I need to think about a post as well