I've been going through a box of old mementoes that I found while organising the laundry room. I was meant to deal with it when we moved in - it was stuff stored in my mum's basement in her old house. I'd forgotten all about it until I cracked it open the other night and it was pretty weird to see most of the stuff.
There were a pile of old letters that I'd gotten from old classmates when I moved to Port Coquitlam from Dawson Creek. I didn't remember getting nearly that many letters. I guess I must have been a better penpal than I thought considering how many people were writing to me. My lack of memory of most of the information in the letters or the circumstances they referred to, like "thanks for the amazing talk the other night" really freaked me out because generally I have a great memory for details. I couldn't even remember who a couple of the people were that were writing thanks to their use of obscure nicknames. I eventually puzzled it out then thought, "she wrote to me? were we really that close?" Apparently I even had penpals in both France and Austria (which I vaguely remember) who wrote to me in French and German. And they wrote often!
As great as the memory trip was I ended up putting most the letters in the recycling box because I just can't keep carrying all this stuff around with me. I kept a couple out to show to friends I keep in contact with so we can laugh over them together. The blackmail photos of the mall/rocker-bitch hair are also keepers.
Also amid the piles of paper were a ton of certificates of various academic awards I got in school ranging from the French 12 award to something from Grade 2 congratulating me on doing well on a spelling test. It was all kept tidily in a Duran Duran folder, no less. Again, it's cool to look through all of it but do I need to keep any of it? Gah!
And I haven't even cracked the box of letters from old boyfriends. Wish me luck...
