Recollection

I was packing up my room today. It felt a lot like the scene in Father of the Bride, when Annie has to pack up her room. Only minus the part where it's because I'm getting married. Still sad though because I know a lot of it won't be seen until I actually do get married and by then, I probably will just be like "Oooh let's look through this, but then get rid of most of it. Why hang onto it?" So. It's a wee bit sad.

I am a bit of a pack rat. I know, it's bad. But I hang onto every note, every journal, every trinket I find...it's crazy. But it was so fun to see all that stuff again. The perfume bottle I wore every single day of 10th grade, and it eventually got switched with a much emptier one at Prom. I got gypped. The notebooks I used to write my texts in (and yes, I know. I still do that) and the little collages we'd make in Beehives of all the things we thought our futures would hold-weddings, being famous, making lots of money. All my soccer trophies, especially my very first year's when I was doing it because I was new in Murrieta and my parents thought it would be a great way to get involved and make friends. We ended up winning first place in the whole city!!! That was awesome. "Millennium madness." Back when everyone thought the world would end in the year 2000. Hahaha The stuffed animals I got from boyfriends or Easter, the things I made in Achievement Days, aaaaall the quotes from all my Young Womens lessons. All the birthday cards I've basically ever received are in one giant blue box so I can remember just what stage I was at by what people wrote inside. "You're getting so big! We love you" to "You've become quite the young woman and we are so proud and impressed by who you are." Ah man. I miss those days.

There's also this thing that I used to do with all of my calendars. Every single year, my parents get us a calendar for Christmas-it's so nice. Well, when I was in middle school, I used to use them sort of as my journals. I would write all the things that happened to me that day. As I have grown up, I still do that sometimes-mostly when it's things I want to remember happened on a certain day. Big things. But back in the day, it was every little thing. That's what the calendar pictures are in the collage. It was so funny to see the squares filled up with the funniest little things. "SAT NEXT TO MARK TODAY" (this boy I had THE biggest crush on in middle school) Haha Oh man. Only in 8th grade would that be the most exciting thing EVER.

Anyway, it was a really weird, bittersweet thing to pack up all that stuff again. It's nice to be nostalgic every once in a while. I love reliving old memories. And I can't wait until I open those confusing boxes again someday and tell my kids all about how their mom came to be.