12/10/2004 01:12:04 AM|||paul|||The problem with memories|||In the process of organising the material components of my life for transportation, I happened across my box o' shit. This is the big box in which I keep the evidence that I have a past, in the form of letters, notes, postcards, newsletters, sketchings, etc.
Until recently I've not been keen on taking photographs. I have a single album full of snaps from the four years of my life I spent at University, but its a small album, and I recently lost it anyway. What I do have though, is letters. It is anathema to me to throw out anything that someone took time to create specifically for me. Looking through my box o' shit revealed not only letters from my then girlfriend (including my first and only ever hope-we-can-still-be-friends letter,) but a plethora of postcards, scrapbook papers, birthday cards and drunken scrawlings.
Reading these old letters does little more than make me sad and nostalgic. That I'll probably never see some of these people who used to mean so much to me is a bit of a personal tragedy that can't really be shared with other people. I feel so separated by time from the person who owned all this stuff that I find it hard to associate those sketchy memories with my own life. Why then should I keep this stuff lying around, if every time I look at them I get melancholy? Why indeed...
The next day: one of my flatmates finds my photo album. Looking through this is far more rewarding, though I can't really say why. I think it's probably the entertainment value - looking at photos doesn't provoke the kind of deep introspection that reading letters does.
One last nugget, to end this rant on a high note. Staff from my first workplace will recognise this licence as the one Noodleboy rips out a picture of every now and then to bring me down a notch.[1] It's mullet-tastic.
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