I've been slowly sorting through everything in my apartment, culling piles and throwing out stuff I don't use. But whenever I get to the bottom layer I get sad and don't want to throw the stuff out.
The bottom layer is the stuff from when I first moved in here, from the last little bit of university. There are university projects that I foolishly thought would make a good portfolio, my planner from 4th year uni (which ended up being the last time in my life that I ever used a planner), bits of administrative minutiae - things of no further importance and no sentimental value by any standards.
And yet finding them makes me sad.
I don't know why. The time they are from was not good. It was uncertain and terrifying and angst-ridden. Now is much better. My life is not changing, I'm just moving to a nicer apartment. I don't know if I'm picking up on residual sadness from back then or if I'm feeling some irrational sadness now, but this is most inconvenient.
1 comment:
My guess is this stuff does have a certain sentimental or nostalgic value--even if you can't or won't consciously acknowledge it--and that's why it's making you emotional in spite of yourself.
Maybe it's only as a reminder of how far you've come since then--more certain and sure of yourself, less terrified and angsty.
OK, so much for the psychobabble, almost: I'll predict just about every time you make a change like this, you'll feel a desire to keep some small (maybe silly or trivial) reminder of the earlier chapters of your life, even if they represent times that weren't particularly good or memorable. Wait and see.
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