Wednesday 15 June 2011

Memories

Last week I read an interesting post on Melanie's blog about accumulating general stuff and what you could possibly do with it. This "stuff" is the items that make up the memories of your life - the tickets, cards and letters we might happen to keep in memory of your past. I started properly collecting/hoarding when I started university in 2005. In my first year room in halls I covered my pin board, then for the rest of university experience the walls or attic ceilings with gig tickets, club adverts, train tickets and cards recording my memories week by week. When I moved home I shoved everything into two huge boxes and left it at that. Now, with planning on moving the time came to think what should I do with it all. They were importance each once to warrant being shown and then being kept, they were my happy times, do they warrant enough important to move with me?
This sums up my memory box and all it is, is a sample peek inside. It's mostly filled with gig tickets, cinema stubs, train tickets, photographs - often spare passport or identity ones, old birthday cards, letters, postcards and newspaper clippings some of which I wrote myself when I did work experience at my local newspaper.
When I was 4 we were all asked to draw a picture of our face at school. These faces from the entire school were complied and transferred onto a tea towel to go on sale to our families. The towel my parents brought they actually used but my gran kept hers in mint condition and I grabbed it after she died. I can remember sitting down and being asked to draw my face - I also did it wrong and drew more then one version of me. I've never done well listening to instructions!
And this is just a sample of me from my old senior school tie - a delightful green and yellow the cottons of which I use to sit and pull out. Once more its filled with old photographs from me giggling in my paddling pool, to a photograph from one Christmas with me wearing a natural mass of curls, to my adventures being blonde and my BA graduation photograph. I guess you can still see Newcastle and University still means a lot to me - it does its just a shame I seem to have wasted both of my degrees currently.
I'm still not overly sure what i'm doing with them all, most of the photographs, university things and gig tickets will be moving with me. I've thrown them all into my "I heart KR" [as in Krakow] bag and i'll throw that into my suitcase. I was contemplating doing a scrapbook but I don't have the attention span to pull it off and the idea of sticking them all down and trapping them doesn't appeal. I have an wanting to find an old suitcase and make that mine and Joe's memory case - morph our individual collections from our childhood and add to the memories already complied there with our joint ones as we start out life together. 
Image from Weheatit

What do you all do with your old things?

12 comments:

  1. OK I just had a total fit running round my room trying to find MY tea towel to see if you were on it and we went to the same school! But it's in the garage storage so I can't look! But I suppose lots of places did it! (My school was in Ossett and then I have just noticed you are from York anyway). I keep loads of stuff, literally rubbish but it all means something, maybe others may think it is rubbish but it all brings back memories at the sight of it and thats why I keep it! xxxxx

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  2. Haha thanks for your comment but I think that's just her face! There are bits of it where I think she's trying to be like Cheryl Cole (god knows why!). In her favour I like her hair, but I think that's because she's ginger like me!
    I've got so much 'stuff' I don't really know what to do with it. I know what you mean about putting them in a scrapbook, I like to be able to hold things individually and think about the memories they hold. My boyfriend's a bit sentimental like that, when we live together I reckon we'll just have a house full of crap!

    S
    x

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  3. Haha Carlito that would have been on insane small world if we'd of gone to the same school!! And Stephanie I know what your saying about Ms Roberts I do love her style and its a shame that she's always going to be in Cheryl's spot light x

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  4. Love this post. suitcase idea sounds lovely! :)

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  5. Aww I'm so glad someone else has a memory suitcase! I've been [or should I say my parents have been] collecting stuff since I was born - my first pair of shoes, old certificates, old school books etc. I keep them in a vintage suitcase which is now threatening to burst, but I hope i can still fill it with plenty more! x

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  6. I am so bad at getting rid of things, I need a memory box or something. Too sentimental for my own good!

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  7. It's so lovely you've still got all these wonderful items, the most important thing is that they have meaning to you. I usually put a box of things away and rediscover them a few years later which is always nice! x

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  8. oh, i used to hoard a lot of my "memories" into a safekeep box too! in fact i still have a big box of old love letters that i'm not sure what to do with! but i still look back at those memories fondly and i think it'll be just a shame if i threw them away. i'll just keep them in the storeroom, hopefully the boy won't throw them away:)

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  9. Tell me about it! Concert tickets, cinema tickets... I keep it all :p

    http://sweetharvestmoon.blogspot.com

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  10. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one that gets obsessed and seems to collect things that count for memories!

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  11. I love this. I've always wanted to start a memory box but never got around to it. I definitely keep all of my things though, I just stuff them all into my scrapbook instead. :)
    I love the tea towel especially! What a cool thing to still have. It looks just like you too. :)

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  12. Hehe I'm surprised how good my drawing was Haylee I will be honest!

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