I have always been one to relish memories.
Deep into my childhood, I have a vivid memory of sneaking away from my siblings under the guise of using the restroom to read a yearbook, signed adoringly by my classmates just months earlier. I held the book in my hand and heard what my friends were saying as they moved the colorful markers along the paper, and saw how bright their smiles seemed to be as we talked.
When school transitioned to an online environment, I remember creating a play with my group about how a raccoon would be a climate activist if it could talk. My teacher loved it so much that she sent everyone who performed a postcard telling her what her favorite line of theirs was. It was decorated around the edges with stickers that really did not quite match the border.
In my first math class in high school, I sat next to a stranger. As we bonded, she passed me sticky notes teaching me how to write my name in Japanese and Arabic, and I sent her notes back recommending Indian dishes and sweets to buy when she got back home.
The yearbooks, the postcard, the notes, and so much more lie in a box I hide at the back of a closet in my basement. It holds poems, crocheted flowers, hearts made of gum wrappers, and any other tangible source of my life that I’ve managed to convince my mother not to throw out. Anything that anyone has ever given me.
I’d like to say that I’m a collector, but I think that the reality is more that I’m a hoarder. I obsessively find every sentimental corner of the blanket that is my life and fold it, storing it in my trusty box that stays hidden in the basement. My emotions run rampant on nostalgia and in times of stress I find myself yearning for the familiar times of what has already passed.
When I was younger, I used to throw out cards and other tokens of appreciation almost as soon as I got them. I had always held the belief that I would simply remember everything. Never had I once stopped to consider; what if I forgot? What if I forgot the laughs that I shared with my brother, or the joke that my dad told everyone during dinner?
I collect everything; my notes app is a collection of my thoughts, my camera roll is a collection of the people I love, and my box is a collection of the mundane that makes life worth living.
