Addicted to sentimentality

While I pack endless boxes before moving away, I'm forced to decide if the emotional value of every tiny little thing I own is really worth as much as I think it is.

I'm the one known to have the best memory in my family. It's all because anything I come to own, be it a new favourite song or a little trinket, I'll remember every detail of the moment that led up to me discovering it. Practically anything and everything in my life has had some emotional sentimentality attached to it.

Being predisposed to constant feelings of nostalgia and reminiscence makes it very, very hard to throw anything away. While I pack my life into a number of boxes before my big move back home to Melbourne, I'm forced to ask myself, "Do I really need this thing that I haven't seen or used in years?" The answer is usually no, but that doesn't make it tossing away any easier. It's like all these possessions from some vague moment of my past are a physical embodiment of my memories. It's the proof that the memory these otherwise insignificant objects are attached to really happened.

I found it hard to throw anything away during my first move from Melbourne to Adelaide. But this time, I've been far more brutal with myself. The moment my mind starts saying, "But I might need it someday, I just don't know what for yet," that's a good sign for me to say farewell. If it serves no purpose for me now, it's essentially emotional clutter that I don't need to carry. Otherwise, I exhaust myself trying to prepare for everything I don't know that's coming in the future.

Having souvenirs of my life is something I value greatly but where does the line get drawn? At what point does it become me being stuck reminiscing of the past and not dreaming of the future? At what point does it become hoarding because I'm too afraid to let things go? Room for my future has to be made somewhere.

Do you have your own treasure box like I do? Are they full of things that truly matter to you? Or could you be carrying more around with you than you need to?