{"id":757,"date":"2024-07-07T22:02:20","date_gmt":"2024-07-07T22:02:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coyotebroad.com\/blawg\/?p=757"},"modified":"2025-01-05T03:35:02","modified_gmt":"2025-01-05T03:35:02","slug":"ah-memories-other-people-all-it-hoarding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coyotebroad.com\/blawg\/2024\/07\/07\/ah-memories-other-people-all-it-hoarding\/","title":{"rendered":"Ah, memories… (other people call it “hoarding”)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Every couple of years, I purge clothes, taking a few bags to Goodwill. I buy less clothes than I get rid, overall, so I actually have less clothes now than I had 20 years ago. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And about once a decade, I purge papers. I am awful about keeping papers. I’m terrified of throwing something away I turn out to need. And it happens: living abroad, I found out that the US required me, when I filed my taxes, to declare how many days I had been in the USA for the year in question, and I’d thrown away all my boarding passes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also really cherish examples of my work or personal messages from friends. So much of my work – my best work – is on paper. Losing that is like losing a part of me. When I go through copies of my work: press releases, newsletters, reports – it’s like being renewed. I’m reminded of not just who I was<\/em>, but who I am<\/em>. It’s cheaper than therapy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s purging time again: I’m determined to finally get rid of the large boxes of papers that have sat next to a filing cabinet for years. And the filing cabinet is half empty; I purged that a while ago. I’m now down to one large box and one small box of papers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This hasn’t been easy, because a lot of what is in those boxes is deeply personal: letters and cards, with messages to me that I cherish beyond measure. I’m being as ruthless as I can… but I also have loved going through it and remembering people and places and my accomplishments. I found so many letters and cards from friends over the years. Some I read and laughed about and then was able to chuck… but some, I just couldn’t. Not yet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is one of the things I found: a parking pass for the DisneyWorld back lot in Orlando. I was visiting a friend who founded Haxan Films and was a co-producer on The Blair Witch Project<\/em>. I felt so important this day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before I moved to Germany, I let a family member talk me into getting rid of a lot of books. I regretted it almost immediately, and then really regretted it when I came back to the USA and realized just all that I’d given away. I do clean out books periodically, but if I hesitate at all, the book stays, period. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sorry to whomever has to clean out my stuff when I die… I really did try to do right by you… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every couple of years, I purge clothes, taking a few bags to Goodwill. I buy less clothes than I get rid, overall, so I actually have less clothes now than I had 20 years ago. And about once a decade, I purge papers. I am awful about keeping papers. I’m terrified of throwing something away […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":759,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[989,980],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fangirl","category-rants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coyotebroad.com\/blawg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coyotebroad.com\/blawg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coyotebroad.com\/blawg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coyotebroad.com\/blawg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coyotebroad.com\/blawg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=757"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/coyotebroad.com\/blawg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":990,"href":"https:\/\/coyotebroad.com\/blawg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757\/revisions\/990"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coyotebroad.com\/blawg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coyotebroad.com\/blawg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coyotebroad.com\/blawg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coyotebroad.com\/blawg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}