Memory Keepers

We will be spending this weekend getting our home ready to put on the market. I am sad about having to sell the house. I have grown attached to this house and it has become our home. I love the layout. I love the neighborhood. And I love that it’s a 2-minute walk to the pool. If y’all don’t know TX weather, anything more than a 2-minute walk will leave you gasping for air in the sweltering summer heat.

I know I will become nostalgic as we go through each room to pack things up or throw things out. I am bracing myself to argue with M on what we keep and what we throw out. Already, we’ve had words on the value of the boys’ artwork and “art” projects. I want to keep everything. M does not want to keep anything. He doesn’t understand that memories fade and we need something tangible to remind us of how much the boys have grown and learned. I have papers from a couple of years ago where Michael was just learning to write his name. It was unrecognizable, but it takes me back to how proud I was of him to try so hard. Yeah, his “c” was backward and his “E” had 4 lines across not 3, but he was still a genius to me regardless.

I think I have a difficult time throwing anything out because everything has the power to draw out memories. Each object has the power to trigger feelings from the past. Each handprint that my boys made brings back vivid memories of the day they made that handprint. It brings back the way they smell, the way they talk, and how things use to be. I’m afraid that if I don’t have the objects anymore, I will lose the memories too.