Rowland Ramble -

I am sentimental.  Family says I’m too much so.  I’m not sure I agree but I do think it can be easy to be capable of attaching too much sentimental memories to objects that take you back in time and allow you to relive the memory or event.  For me it’s typically a sweet memory or time that something good happened in my life and some random object came into my life as a result of the event.  Some people take pictures, some collect objects and some do both.  For example, I have party beads from a friend and I haven’t spoken to her in at least a year and I even question if they really are my friend anymore anyway.  BUT, handling those beads when I stumble across them in my collection of “memories” reminds me of when we were friends and spent time hanging out together.  It triggers happy thoughts if even for just a split second.  I have another couple of party bead sets from Las Vegas that I picked up when I went there for an event and while another friend didn’t have a direct part in my acquiring those goofy beads, she did help me  arrange my tickets to get there and back and those beads trigger happy thoughts of when we used to be friends before we fell out of contact.  It’s not about the objects but rather, it’s the memories.  It’s having an ability to connect objects to memories that were important at some point in my life.  The beads are just an example of of objects that have had important meanings attached to them.  The idea of throwing away the object is easy, it’s the idea that once that object is gone, the trigger for the good memories goes with it if I don’t have it to remind me anymore.  With the connections that are created between object and the good memory, it becomes painful to throw away what essentially is a good memory for no other reason than it’s taking up space.  Throwing away some meaningless object is like throwing away a good memory when it’s got one attached to it.  This is probably not as uncommon as one might think.   How to let go?…that’s the big question.