“Just toss it!” is the rallying cry of these weeks. But some items we simply can’t bring ourselves to discard. 9 writers share
I brought this approach into my marriage. Just ask my husband. I inadvertantly threw out his law school notes (corporate tax) in a fit of tidying, and they weren’t the ones from the previous semester. Miraculously, my first grade notebook survived the clutter purges, and that’s because Mrs. Weiss, my first grade teacher, saved it. She said it was the neatest notebook of her career, and she sent it home with my daughter around 13 years ago.
I can’t bring myself to throw it away.
I rarely look at it, but when I do, I can see the child I was and assess her with the detachment of time. Excellent handwriting, moderate cutting skills, rudimentary drawing skills. I can see how carefully she copied journal entries from the blackboard, and the tidbits of information feel like lost messages from another era.
March 22, 1983 was sunny and windy; it was also the last school day before Pesach. April 18, 1983 — the sun is trying to shine. May 26, 1983 was a humid, cloudy day, and I’d gotten a new pair of shoes.
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