"Keepsakes" - Good? Bad? In the trash? Regrets?

[MoonLiteNite]

Are they good?
Do you save stuff?
Have you thrown it all away?
Have you parted with your painting your mom and you made 20 years ago?
Do you have shoe boxes full of photos?

Discus!

[MoonLiteNite]

I have always had very  small amount of "stuff" my largest % of stuff has always beem keepsakes, puzzles my mother and i used to solve. Old VS tapes form church, my hotwheel cars, marbles that i used to collect, boardgames from the late 80s, etc...
I am 30 years old and my mother pasted away 7 years ago. I was STARTING to get rid of personal items, including stuff from her, but i have always put it off.
Hard to decide what to keep vs what to save, or if i should save anything at that.

I recently have thrown out some old collections of marbles, puzzles, boardgames, and clothes from my childhood. And my stuffed animal collection.
I am having a harder getting rid of projects, like clay pots we made together, and never fully finished painting, or coloring books we did together as a kid, or a boombox she got me for my 16th birthday.

Even non-mother related stuff is hard to get rid of, i have some cheap broken RC cars from my great grandma, that have just been on a display case for 15 years now. Very hard to get rid of it.

One trick i did for the puzzles, movies and others, is i took a photo of them and saved online, so i can always look back and remind myself, but i dont have the stuff taking up floorspace.

[Miss Piggy]

25% of my basement space is taken up by shit I plan to sell on Ebay. But it's been down there since we moved into this house 13 years ago, and my recent efforts to sell five things on Ebay proved unsuccessful, with the exception of a baseball cap in perfect condition. I'm getting closer and closer to just loading the crap in the car and delivering it to Goodwill.

I will say, however, that a garage sale about 6 months ago was quite successful in helping us clear out another 25% of our basement, not to mention a few bedroom closets.

[Thinkum]

A timely post since I have been asking myself this as well. I am on the opposite side of the equation though, a minimalist and not overly sentimental. I suppose I think about it as not letting my stuff own me. I have a small plastic shoe box sized box with some old pics, journals, letters, etc. Even that is going to be trimmed down.

I used to have a lot more photos, but gave most of them to family. No regrets. I went digital early and like having stuff on HD's taking up no physical space. Even my old comics that I trudged around for years, I got rid of most of them. It is really empowering to realize that my thinking changed and there was no reason to keep them around just taking up space.

[FiftyIsTheNewTwenty]

I have a small amount of stuff that I hate to get rid of, but feel encumbered by.  I've been downsizing my whole adult life and am happier living more simply.  I feel guilty when people give me gifts that are keepsakes that I don't want to be responsible for storing.

With digitized photos, videos, music, and books, how much space do we really need these days?  Skip to 7:00 if this video is too long:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ6irnso40c

[sparkytheop]

One thing that has helped me is to go through things somewhat slowly, several times, getting rid of a little more each time.

Example:  I started with "five" boxes of my son's baby stuff (in quotes, because I don't actually remember how many there were).  There were blankets and quilts my mom made, different outfits, some toys, etc.  I decided to drop to four boxes + one small box to start.  I donated the other items from the fifth box.

Then, after a few months, I went through it again and got rid of more.  Then, when I found out my younger brother was having a kid, I went through it again and pulled out stuff for him.  Worked my way down to three boxes.

Then, after more time went by, I went through it again and donated more.

I now have two boxes, and I consider them to be as condensed as they'll get until either my son has a baby, or, if he chooses not to have children, they will go to my nieces/nephews when they have kids.  The items I kept were his coming home outfit, his "was supposed to come home in" outfit (he was a preemie, so too small for the original outfit), a little suit, and the items my mom made for him.  I hope those can be passed down, they are in great shape, and it would be nice if a baby had something that great-gramma made.  If DS does have a child, I plan on cutting the remaining clothes and making a new baby quilt from them.  I would hope that that preemie outfit wouldn't fit his baby!

Now that I quilt, I kind of wish I had kept more baby/kid clothes, but I can always make stuff from his grown-up clothes instead.

[driftwood]

I have always had very  small amount of "stuff" my largest % of stuff has always beem keepsakes, puzzles my mother and i used to solve. Old VS tapes form church, my hotwheel cars, marbles that i used to collect, boardgames from the late 80s, etc...
I am 30 years old and my mother pasted away 7 years ago. I was STARTING to get rid of personal items, including stuff from her, but i have always put it off.
Hard to decide what to keep vs what to save, or if i should save anything at that.

I recently have thrown out some old collections of marbles, puzzles, boardgames, and clothes from my childhood. And my stuffed animal collection.
I am having a harder getting rid of projects, like clay pots we made together, and never fully finished painting, or coloring books we did together as a kid, or a boombox she got me for my 16th birthday.

Even non-mother related stuff is hard to get rid of, i have some cheap broken RC cars from my great grandma, that have just been on a display case for 15 years now. Very hard to get rid of it.

One trick i did for the puzzles, movies and others, is i took a photo of them and saved online, so i can always look back and remind myself, but i dont have the stuff taking up floorspace.

Photos - I scanned them then shredded them.  I never looked at them anyways but they still exist for my kids to look at someday if they want.  Maybe after I FIRE I'll look at them too.  Digitally they don't take up much space

Christmas - We were give an ornament EVERY YEAR growing up.  Sometimes my Mom made them, sometimes they were purchased (one is a Rax happy meal reindeer). I also have a few I made, so I have and store about 40 meaningful ornaments.  These chafe with my minimalist mindset because they're only out once a year.  I'll either keep using them or if I decide to get rid of them I'll have them photographed so I have an digital album of them.

Childhood memory books (school pictures, milestones, mostly flat keepsakes) - these all fit in one bin, and I honestly don't know what to do with them.  I'm thinking of digitizing all of it by scanning everything.  I think in the future that seeing a scan or digital photo will be the same nostalgic fun trip down memory lane as actually touching the item.

Childhood toys - my mom recently sent me two from my childhood for my kids to play with.  When my kids outgrow them I'll offer them to siblings for their younger kids or give away. 

Wooden handmade projects from my Dad - I must've donated a toy toolbox my woodworking dad made me, and I regret it (going on 6ish years ago).  I would've let my kids play with it, then maybe donated it after that.  My Dad also built me a "Lego table" for building with Lego.  It sad about a foot off the ground, had 1/2" raised edges so loose pieces wouldn't fall off, and a drain hole that I could use to clear off the table into containers.  My nephews have the table now and I am a little bummed that I didn't keep it for my kids, but I'm happy that it is still being used, esp by people I care about. (I gave it to my brother when I was in the Army traveling around the world and he first had kids, which was years before I got married and decided to have some of my own.)

I don't really accumulate things anymore, so I don't have similar dilemmas with newer things.

[ltt]

We have a lot of "stuff" in our garage that belonged to MIL.  Need to go through and either keep a few items or toss them.  It's been five years, but I really think my husband needs to do it. 

We've kept some old items, such as my dad's boots, his letter jacket, and my grandfather's lunch box.  They're kind of neat pieces to have.  I have no idea what I would do with his old letter jacket---it's in pristine condition.  I'm wondering if his old high school would want it?  Or maybe I could put it in some type of shadow box and hang it in our home.  We also have his desk that he made in shop class (back from the 1950s) that we're planning on refinishing and putting new handles on.  It's very heavy and want to keep it.

I have some of my mom's old Christmas ornaments also.  They need to either go online or to Goodwill.  I've held onto them for a long time.  There's one very small paper-made angel that I have setting out all year round, but the others probably should go, and my daughters don't want them.

[LindseyC]

Every year of my adult life I actually own less, despite having more space and I regret none of it.

When my grandparents passed I deliberately asked for small keepsakes I could absorb into my home and use as everyday decor items or functional objects.

Keepsakes from my own youth I happily give to nieces and nephews, or children of close friends.

Things that I ultimately realized I didn't care about I just donated or threw out. High school yearbook, photos with people I no longer remember, free clothing items from events.

Nowadays I very thoughtfully consider things I allow into my house and I am a firm believer in one item in, one item out. I'm not a minimalist but I certainly own significantly less then most people around me in like circumstances. I am pretty consistent about doing a declutter every few months, I avoid mindless shopping and when people ask me what I would like for gifts I ask for practical consumable or household items, or experiences.

I can honestly say since I switched to a less materialistic lifestyle I am significantly happier. I still splurge on the occasional items (board games, vintage art glass) but generally I aim to buy everything second hand. Most keepsakes now I aim to upcycle somehow into a form of decor or art for my house.

[GuitarStv]

Keepsakes are a weird transference of love into inanimate objects.  Don't waste your love on things, they will never love you back.

I keep stuff that serves a purpose, and get rid of the rest.

[MBot]

I have a portrait of my grandfather hanging up
A couple printed books of our family history immigrating to Canada and the past hundred years - lots of scans and notes and photos were put into them
Photos I have a couple albums and am starting to print one photo book per year.

Another grandfather passed on some porcelain figurines and we will keep them for a while, maybe keep one after he passes on.

I will be getting  rid of my wedding dress - it's no longer in style but I think I'll find another way

The only really sentimental big  item I have is a bookcase a friend gifted and I refinished. I may not keep that forever, though.

All that said, my mom has a ton of sentimental family items and I will probably be gifted some... we'll cross that bridge later.

[Kiwi Fuzz]

I have moved approximately 20 times in my life - between my parents' separate relocations (they divorced when I as 6), moving flats in my early twenties then moving to the other hemisphere and moving since. I hate stuff. Every time I move I want to live in a cave with no furniture and no anything.

Unfortunately, my husband is the son of a literal hoarder and he has some habits/expectations from growing up that way. He has a passionate hate of antiques, the items that his father hoards, but he has strong sentimental attachment to 'stuff'. He keeps a small box of knick-knacks - birthday cards, childhood drawings, etc - in the closet. His sentimentality doesn't end with things that he owns. Even things that I own, gifts from him, are burdened with sentimental value. I hate ornaments. He has since learnt this but that doesn't preclude the ones he has already gifted me...

In other words, I have much more stuff than I want to own. I did keep a painting that I received as a teenager from my then boyfriend's step mother since she had never met me but it was uncanny how it related to my life at the time (and to this day). It's very small, though. I also have some jewelry that my grandmother gave me before she passed and a 'dairy cookbook' from her. I'm her only grandchild, that I know of, who is allergic to diary. The health advice in it is hilarious, though, so it's a good read. All my 'stuff' that came with me to the USA fit into two suitcases. It was mostly clothing. Then again, I'm not a terribly sentimental person. I think I inherited my grandmother's British stiff upper lip.

[Retire-Canada]

Are they good?
Do you save stuff?
Have you thrown it all away?
Have you parted with your painting your mom and you made 20 years ago?
Do you have shoe boxes full of photos?

Discus!

I did this ^^^ around 10yrs ago to 99% of my memorabilia and I no longer let anything collect. I have no regrets. So much less to move and store. Although I can no longer go back to a year book and find out the name of somebody I went to high school with I have concluded that I don't care.

Beyond memorabilia whenever someone tries to give me stuff these days unless I can think of an immediate use for it I decline. It's overall a better deal for me to buy the odd item when I need it than to store a thousand potentially useful items in the hopes of one day triumphantly being able to pull them out of a rubbermaid.

[Chris22]

I have one of those boxes that printer paper comes in full of "my life", various newspapers from HS/college, old scrapbook, programs from graduations, etc.  I put the whole box in a RubberMaid bin and it's in my crawlspace.  It's relatively silly to hold on to, but every once in a while it's fun to pull out and go through, especially with my daughter.  For the size of it, it's harmless.  I also have a small bin the size of a shoe box full of random pictures from college, I could scan them but don't really want to invest the time, and again, given the size of it it's not exactly holding me back.  Those two bins are basically all the "sentimental" items I own.  (My wife on the other hand...)  IMO, holding onto a reasonable amount of keepsake stuff is normal and healthy and has no downsides.  It's when "everything" is a keepsake that you start to have problems.  There would be no measurable improvement in my life if I got rid of those two small boxes.

[Frankies Girl]

An ongoing bout of serious depression has had a silver lining for me in that I no longer care deeply about material things/sentimental items. As I grew up with both parents being hoarders and am a reformed packrat, this has been quite helpful.

Over the last 2 years, I've donated things I'd been dragging around for decades - childhood clothing, toys, decor items - finally got the nerve to let go of my wedding dress this past year even. It hurt each time; I suffer from anxiety as well, so dealing with the hoarding/packrat tendency to want to keep ALL THE THINGS meant dealing with an anxiety attack leaving the donation center and avoiding the place for some time to ensure not seeing the things on the sales floor after. I made the mistake of donating old dance recital costumes and going back in a week later and seeing them tagged on a rack set off deep feelings of panic, regret and sorrow over "losing" them... but logically I still am very, very happy to have them out of my house and life.

As the husband and I have no children and don't have any close family, we'll likely be going through any old photos and the like (pure sentimental stuff) and eventually throwing it all out or labeling it as purely sentimental junk so whomever ends up with the task of cleaning out our house in the event we don't get rid of that stuff ourselves has an easier time of tossing things they don't need to consider valuable.

[Dances With Fire]

I have always had very  small amount of "stuff" my largest % of stuff has always beem keepsakes, puzzles my mother and i used to solve. Old VS tapes form church, my hotwheel cars, marbles that i used to collect, boardgames from the late 80s, etc...
I am 30 years old and my mother pasted away 7 years ago. I was STARTING to get rid of personal items, including stuff from her, but i have always put it off.
Hard to decide what to keep vs what to save, or if i should save anything at that.

I recently have thrown out some old collections of marbles, puzzles, boardgames, and clothes from my childhood. And my stuffed animal collection.
I am having a harder getting rid of projects, like clay pots we made together, and never fully finished painting, or coloring books we did together as a kid, or a boombox she got me for my 16th birthday.

Even non-mother related stuff is hard to get rid of, i have some cheap broken RC cars from my great grandma, that have just been on a display case for 15 years now. Very hard to get rid of it.

One trick i did for the puzzles, movies and others, is i took a photo of them and saved online, so i can always look back and remind myself, but i dont have the stuff taking up floorspace.

Sorry for your loss, even if it was 7 years ago... I recently lost my mom and I can really relate to this.

Although we don't have a lot of "stuff", going through the basement to consolidate a few things was really difficult. Memories of an earlier time came back. Slowly...Ever so slowly,I was able to toss or give away a few things. Photos, even if they are in a box, I tend to keep.

[partgypsy]

Keepsakes are a weird transference of love into inanimate objects.  Don't waste your love on things, they will never love you back.

I keep stuff that serves a purpose, and get rid of the rest.

I'm more on the minimalist side, but certain items are a touchstone to remembering a particular time of life, or a person. I  treasure the afgan blankets that my Greek grandmother crocheted. My ex has a quilt that was made up of flannel pieces from old suits and clothes that his great grandmother made. It made me happy, that we got the wooden blocks my ex's grandfather made from hand and gave to his grandson (my ex), so now our kids play with them. I don't need a lot of stuff, but certain things are worth saving and maybe even passing on to another generation.

[Kaspian]

You must decide between "keepsake" and "heirloom".  (I think that's what partgypsy is talking about.) If none of your descendants or extended family would want it and it holds less than 40% sentimental value for you, definitely less than $40 resale value, get the hell rid it.  For the record:  Of the keepsakes I've thrown/given away, I now don't even remember what they were--so they couldn't have been very important?   I agree with the above poster--take a photo before you get rid of it if it needs to go but you still feel somewhat attached.  Or, maybe write a few paragraphs regarding your memory of the person and item--because the memory is what matters and short stories will remind you fondly of the event later if you forget.  (Plus, short stories are cool.) And (for once!) I agree with GuitarStv, understand that the person you think of isn't "inside" the object.  A paperweight is a paperweight.  A shoehorn is just a shoehorn.  Your loved one's soul doesn't exist inside of it.  When your emotions try to tell you that your grandpa is magically inside the shoehorn, tell them to shut the hell up.

THEN adopt a strict one-in-one-out strategy.  Anything new comes into your place, you must get rid of at least one comparable item or thing of equal size.

[Dicey]

I hang onto things as memory triggers. Certain things allow me to access memories that I seem to have no other way of getting to. My doctor says she's not worried about my memory. I say well at least that's one of us.

I don't know what to do, so I do nothing. I am somewhat organized and my home is not cluttered, but I know I have too much stuff.

PTF

[Rural]

I have a house that my father and husband built for me with help from an uncle and my brother*- that's clearly heirloom status. But someday I'll also have a house that my father and his father built with help from various of my father's brothers and from my great grandfather for my mother and us kids. Then what? Does one house become keepsake? Clutter? It's a dilemma.






* I did help some, but I'm realistically just too small to do most heavy construction work, so I earned the money for the supplies with side hustles instead.

[I'm a red panda]

There are some keepsakes I hang on to- others I'm willing to throw away.

For instance, the hat my son wore when we were able to hold him after I delivered him: I will never ever give that away. It sits on his urn and I would go back into a burning house to get it if I needed to. But I will also never have another thing from my son.  I imagine I will keep my daughter's hat too- but maybe it will be less meaningful as she (hopefully) will have years and years of "things" that are hers.

Whereas, I've found various vacation keepsakes from growing up. I still remember my sister giving me the spoon for my "collection" (I never had one)- so I've always kept it because it is funny; but I recently got rid of it.  I remember selecting the glass bluebird in Gatlinberg, but I don't display it anymore, and haven't since I was a teen- so I'll get rid of it.

As attached as I am to things, I got rid of my wedding dress a few weeks after the wedding. I wanted it to go to someone else to wear it while it was still in style. Man I loved that dress, it was gorgeous.

[Kaspian]

I hang onto things as memory triggers. Certain things allow me to access memories that I seem to have no other way of getting to. My doctor says she's not worried about my memory. I say well at least that's one of us.

You can have access though!  Write down the full memory as vividly as possible.  Then you don't need an object.

[Fish Sweet]

For a long time, I tended to hold onto keepsakes long after I remembered why I cared about them or cherished them so much.  These days, I still have a large box.... crate, more like, of stuff, but I've managed to trim it down for the most part and keep it to the one thing.  Every so often, I go through the items inside, and if there's anything that doesn't trigger a smile, a sense of nostalgia, or a vivid memory, I take a picture and get rid of it.  If I feel nostalgic, looking at the picture is almost as good, and takes up a fraction of the space.

One of these days, I'll go through and write out all these vivid memories in a journal, and keep that instead, but a couple items are precious in and of themselves (for example, my grandfather was a geologist, and I was gifted a rock collection from him.)

[Cassie]

I have gotten rid of a lot of stuff because at 62 I don't want other people to have a bunch of junk to go through when the time comes. I am also finding that I like less stuff around. I always ask my 3 kids first if it is something they want before getting rid of it if it is something that has been in the family.

[MoonLiteNite]

For me, i really don't have much of anything. Like i have lived in my house for 8  years and still dont have a couch or kitchen table....

My main personal item is the keepsakes on a work desk (along the top) and and a nicnac shelf that i dug out of a dumpster 10 years ago.

I guess in 2 weeks (next days off) i will take some more photos and start getting rid of more stuff.

[BoonDogle]

I have to remind myself that it is not the item that gives me pleasure, but the memory.  I can have the memory without the item.  My wife is more sentimental than I am and stores some things from the kids grade school days, crafts they made, etc.  I don't try to convince her to get rid of them since I know the futility of that conversation.

The older I get the more I look forward to a day when I have very little to store and maintain.

[AMandM]

MoonLiteNite, the important thing is not how much memorabilia other people keep, but how much of it is meaningful to you.  If you like looking at (say) the pots and thinking about how you and your mother made them together, don't feel guilty about keeping them.  If, on the other hand, you don't really enjoy having them but feel obligated to keep them just because they're connected to your mother and can't be replaced, then I would get rid of them. 

Also, give yourself time.  I kept a lot of my mother's clothes for several years after she died before I was ready to get rid of them.  The longer I have lived without my mother, the more I've remembered her in ways unconnected to the objects she left behind, and the easier it's been to get rid of the ones that I don't use and like.

My sympathies on your loss, even if it's not recent.