As part of a pandemic related purging, I’ve been going through boxes of stuff that I’ve accumulated over the years. I’ve always been a bit of a pack rat and I have 2 or 3 good sized totes with letters, cards and things accumulated over the years.
Going through them and purging seems like the right thing to do. After all, 50 cards from my grandmother, long passed, really doesn’t mean anything, to anyone, but me. As I looked at them, I frequently could not remember the year – the occasion was generally a birthday or a holiday – but in looking at the aggregate, I came to realize how much I was in my grandmother’s thoughts. And the process was repeated in my mind over and over as I looked at cards and letters from friends, and other relatives – many of whom are now gone.
This purge has made me both grateful, for the memories of the relationships I’ve experienced, and somewhat sad for my kids, in that this type of physical memory of friends and family won’t be there for them when they reach my age. I have amazing correspondence from friends in high school and college because we didn’t have cell phones, we didn’t have email, and we wanted to stay in touch. We don’t write letters any longer – we don’t have to. So we probably stay more in touch in the moment, but the long term physical reminder won’t be there.
So, this brings up a question for me…. Do we need physical reminders of experiences, to be able to remember them (and relationships really are experiences). Without a totem/talisman/ tchotchke, will we truly remember our past experiences in distinct events (many that make us who we are today) or does it just get blended into some amorphous bundle that lose the boundaries of time and event?
Not Really a Boomer 