Don't get me wrong...

I'm committed to simplifying my life -

and getting rid of things -

and forms of things -

that no longer make sense to keep.

I just hadn't counted on how hard it is 

to shred pictures you've been hanging on to 

for 40+years!

The anxiety I have while scanning
and then shredding photos

is similar to how I felt cleaning out my mothers house 

when she went into a nursing home 

due to her dementia.

She hadn't thought or asked about her collections of

bells, 

birds, 

thimbles, 

quilts,

Toby mugs or

LPs etc 

for decades.
(yes, 'collecting' is in my DNA!)

But getting rid of them permanently, 

instead of merely storing them indefinitely at my house,

 felt like acknowledging that she never would ...

the dementia would never lift
and restore her to the woman
she had once been.

A "hard copy' of photos is the only reality 

many of us have known and trusted 

since we got our first Brownie cameras!

Digitalizing images- and accepting that 

SHOULD someone in my family care to look at them, 

they can be retrieved from the hard drive

is a tough pill to swallow.
(Not that my sons have wanted to look at them for years -
but hope springs eternal!)

On my stroll down memory lane,
I must say I'm glad I held on to
some of these handwritten gems...
anyone else remember when kids wrote thank you notes,
Valentines and
and apologies?

 do they even teach cursive anymore?

Hard to see -
but the crying man on the apology note
has a prisoner number on his chest -
24601.

I LOVED having a second grader who knew Jean Valjeans number -
(from Les Mis)
and used it appropriately...
totally mitigated whatever the infraction was -
although I don't think I told him that at the time!

So far I haven't had the heart to shred these...
that might be a bridge too far.

ps:
headed Up North for a long weekend
to celebrate more graduations -
and talk about the Camino until their eyes glaze over...

be back soon !