Growing up...

Very recently, I asked my son to clear out some space in his bookshelf to put some other items that were kind of looking for a home. Seeing that those item without a stable home were GUNS, he jumped at the chore with a gusto that I have not seen in a long time. He got things reorganized and set up very nicely, but in the course of clearing out space, he put in a pile, a small collection of items that were part of his childhood. Some were things to sell on a garage sale, and some were thing to save, but they were all big parts of his childhood, and he had decided that they no longer had a place in his room. It made me kind of sad. I remembered buying those items, or helping him make them, or remember something associated with them. Like the little HALO video game figurines. I remember the time we spent together playing that video game for hours and then he would play with the figurines in his room later. Or the models of vehicles. We would make some of them in the basement in my tool room and then paint them, spending many hours together doing this. And very recently, I noticed that his bike tire was flat, and I asked him if he would take it up to the tire repairman to get it fixed, but he said, "I don't think I am going to ride it anymore. You can sell it on the garage sale." I was kind of heartbroken. At one time, that bike was his main form of transportation and he selected it out of all the other kinds of bikes, and now it is no more than something that is taking up room in the garage.

All of these things are most likely destined for the garage sale or storage box, but I am reluctant to let them go away. So many of those things have memories that I have associated with them, and I know he has memories attached to them too, so I am reluctant to let them go, thinking that at some point, he might want them in the future. I have many things that I have kept from my childhood, and while I do not use them or play with them, I will at times, bring them out, look them over and let the nostalgia and memories wash over me. And that is what I don't want him to miss out on. Moments like that are important and I would hate for him to someday be thinking about something and remember that he USED to have an item that relates to that memory. Not that he (or my daughter for that matter) needs to keep everything they have, but I would hate for them to get rid of things that really meant alot to them, just for the sake of making room for something else.

Maybe I will just hold on to them for him.

later!