Today I was going to write a paper, but I got distracted and started cleaning out my room instead. Since I'll be moving home at the end of the year, I've been throwing stuff I don't use into my car every time I go home for the weekend. Today, I attacked my desk and my bookshelf, and not only did I pack things up to take home, I also threw a lot of stuff away.
I'm a packrat by nature, and I know it. It would feel so good to keep every single thing I've ever come in contact with. Usually it's not for practical reasons of "you never know, I might need this someday." It's more along the lines of, "what if I forget about the very first time I went to the health center and they gave me this sticker? This sticker is SYMBOLIC! I MUST KEEP THIS STICKER!"
I'm not exaggerating. Luckily, on days like today, I manage to go to the other extreme and just get rid of everything. Strangely enough, though, the things I had the hardest time getting rid of were...writing utensils:
I am fully aware that the only reason I have these is because of their sentimental value. So, taking a page from Fussy, I decided I'd just tell their stories and let them go.
That overall-clad rabbit is a pen--if you look closely you can see that the tip of its ears is just the cap. I got this for Easter one year, and my brother got one with blue overalls. I have always been quite proud of myself for not losing the cap of this pen, and I think that's why I kept it. Or, it's possible that just I anthropomorphized it--I have a hard time throwing anything with eyes into the garbage.
The gray pencil is from seventh grade Biology class. A boy named Jonah had somehow come into a pack of about ten Calvin Klein designer pencils, and they all had a different phrases on them starting with "if." He gave them to a few people, and although I can't remember why anymore, he gave one to me. It says, "if you like to share." A lot of people complain that jr. high was just terrible for them, but I have always thought that those were two of my favorite years of grade school. I probably haven't used this pencil since then, but whenever I see it I'm reminded of how much fun I had as I became a teenager.
The pencil-half is my drawing pencil from Art Survey my freshman year of high school. On the first day of class my teacher told us how important it was to use this specific pencil for our work, and how wonderful it was. Really, I don't remember what he said, but I vaguely remember knowing that I should keep it FOREVER, so I never throw it out because of that vague sense of its value. It got broken in the bottom of my bag about two weeks before the class ended, and I remember praying that we wouldn't have to do any more drawing so my teacher wouldn't see what I'd done.
And last but not least, the China Marker. When I was little, the cashiers at my favorite restaurant, Golden Corral (give me a break), used these to write down your order. These funny crayon/pencil hybrids were fascinating to me, especially because to sharpen them you got to pull a piece of string and peel away some of the outer wrapping. Also adding to the allure was the name China Marker, which to a small child is essentially saying, this is a marker, and it is Chinese. This must be what children on the other side of the world color with! Isn't it funny that they haven't got real markers? It made the whole thing very exotic. So at some point in high school, I came across china markers at Wal-Mart or something, and decided to buy one for nostalgia's sake. If someone had given me one of these as a kid, it probably would have been a semi-religious experience, but it's really not much good to me now, as I don't spend a lot of time coloring, nor do I mark china. But I might, you know? Maybe I do need to keep this.
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