Do you keep sentimental objects from your childhood?

[c&j04]

If you have room, keep it! I have far more than that.

[lalasmama]

I have 2 large Rubbermade-style totes--the large ones, not the ginormous ones, if that makes sense. I think they are the 18 gallons ones maybe?

One tote is stuff I have chosen to keep over the years. There's letters from my first boyfriend, movie stubs from various times in my life, cards from my ex-fiancee (who has since passed on), my baptism record, and some other little random things like that. I think I have my middle school journal in there too, but I'm not sure.

Before my mom died, she had set aside another tote of similar things from my early childhood. I received it about 3 weeks after she was gone. There were congrats cards from when they adopted me, hand prints from preschool, the first love letter I wrote to Leroy (from The Jets; my first celeb crush), and some report cards.

When she passed, I also received multiple totes and boxes of mementos from her life--love letters to/from my dad (OMG, eeewwww, she "wanted" him and couldn't wait to "see" him [wink wink, nudge nudge], LOL!), pictures from her childhood, an autograph book from her middle school days, cards from friends over the years, even the TIME magazine from the moon landing. On the days I'm really missing her, I open up one of those boxes or tubs, and I step back into her life. I never know what I may find--maybe a journal entry from her days of dating Dad, maybe a note from a friend after the divorce, maybe a journal entry about early parenthood, or how annoying it is to have 2 little sisters and 2 older sisters. But I love and treasure seeing this other side of her!

So, I'd say "keep it". And I don't think 1-2 tubs is too much. One day you will pass on, and, as silly as some of the things seem, your children will go back to them, hold them, think of you, feel you near, by touching these things that you touched, by seeing the things that introduce a whole new version of you. I assumed I knew my mom inside out. We were very close. But when I got to look through those boxes of her, I saw her as a kid...a teenager...a love-struck co-ed... a new mom, who read parenting magazines just like me... a student teacher who had kids who adored her.... It was like I met a whole new person. She wasn't just Mom.... she was Patty (or Tricia, as she attempted in college, which makes me picture her as vivacious; so not how I thought of my mom!).

[Kymberley]

Mimi, that made me tear up, in a good way! Thank you for sharing and for so thoughtfully making me feel okay about keeping these treasures.