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time capsule

Posted by t

behind this bookcase in an upstairs bedroom of my parents’ house lies a secret time capsule of the first twenty years of my life. it’s home to cherished mementos from milestones of my youth, dating back to the cross-stitched announcement of my birth.

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memories here stretch from tutus to muddy caves, from pacifiers to awkward dates.

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my family lived in the same house from the time i was born until my senior year of high school. during my freshman year of college, my parents finally finished building a gorgeous dream house on 20 acres at the edge of town.

my younger brother and sister were still living at home, and each had their own room in the new house. while it seemed silly to build a room for me, i still wanted a space to call my own when i came “home” during breaks from college. (and a place to put all my stuff, let’s be honest.)

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so they decided to finish out a small, oddly-shaped storage area behind my sister’s bedroom, and designated it my “cubby.” i was thrilled. i requested the hidden door, and was so pleased when the builder created one just like i imagined.

i immediately determined there was no need for tasteful decoration in a secret cubby, and set about plastering the walls with all the pictures, plaques, and keepsakes that had been stashed in drawers and memory boxes in my old room. i nestled all the belongings i couldn’t part with into the wedged corner created by the angle of the roof, and set up my random trinkets on a small bookshelf.

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the map & calendar of my european travels hangs just as it did in my netherlands flat.

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the itty bitty foam couch unfolds into a pad just long enough for my short body, and i used to lie there staring at all my memories and grinning.

the cubby is not really secret, since almost everyone who has been been to the house has seen it, but it remains mostly untouched since i moved my stuff in, with the exception of adding souvenirs from my college years after i moved out of the sorority house. i love that all these things are on display where i can enjoy them any time i visit my family.

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but i know the cubby can’t remain this way forever. eventually i’ll have to claim my stuff and it will all go into boxes where it will take much more effort to browse and reminisce. as i look around at the tokens, big and small, that i’ve collected over the years, i can’t imagine parting with any of it, but know i will have to choose.

the photos here are the beginning of my digital documentation of these keepsakes, so i can store the memories on my computer instead of the attic. the hardest part will be giving up any of the numerous handmade and mod-podged (hello, 90s!) gifts from precious friends.

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prints from a photography class sit wedged behind a row of decoupaged crafts.

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i’ll rescue the personalized boxes because they have the important job of containing other important keepsakes, and i can save the huge mickey mouse i won when i was eight for my (eventual) children. the same goes for my favorite comfort snuggies from way back: benny the bear and pink blankie.

but what about the box of playbills (nearly 50) from every musical i’ve seen in nyc, london, and dallas? what about the stack of trail maps (about 25) from every ski resort i’ve visited? and the large box of letters received over a cumulative eight months at summer kamp? will i really be able to justify making space for these things? there certainly won’t be room for the (shh, don’t tell my husband) boxes of sweet tokens from old boyfriends, homemade rockets from working at flight camp, knickknacks from high school musicals, micky ears from disney world…can you tell i’m a bit of a sentimental packrat?

i’m just going to savor my tiny time machine while it lasts.

Posted in okieOLIO

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Tags: keepsakes, memories

there’ve been a lot of rennovations on memory lane

Jan 30

Posted by t

i don’t know if it’s amusing, impressive, or scary how easy it is to do a facelift on your personal history. our brains are capable of a makeover so effective that we forget the “before” pictures ever existed and move forward in life with a new reality.

i’m not referring to coping with trauma. i’m talking about the details of an event or period of time that we wish were just a little bit different. so often those details get airbrushed in our minds, just enough to take the edge off the awkward, insecure, and embarrassing memories.

and then there’s the material evidence. sometimes snapshots of these moments facilitate the fib (“look how happy i am smiling at that <awful> party.”) and sometimes the photos belie the distorted recollection (“wow, that haircut was not quite as flattering i remembered.”)

for the past few weeks i’ve been scanning a lot of my old photos into flickr, to preserve them before they fade or get lost, but also because browsing and organizing my pictures on the computer is a favorite pastime of mine. (life is just too good not to enjoy the high points again and again.) it seems incomprehensible now, but i don’t have to go back many years to arrive at my pre-digital photos.

in some aspects the images are an annoyingly accurate record-keeper. there’s no denying the bad perm, buck teeth, or gigantic glasses. but other times photographs are a misleading illusion. and i don’t just mean a funny camera angle. i’m talking about the posed moments created especially for the benefit of the camera – a shiny façade glossed on top of the truth.

either way, each picture brings a jolting rush of emotion. as i viewed each print, i laughed, i gasped, i awwwed, i sighed, i cringed. i felt happy, sad, excited, irritated, nostalgic, nervous, and loved. i felt whatever i had been feeling at the moment the photo was snapped.

for the most part, i love that emotive response to re-living freeze frames from the past – i’ve led a full, charmed, ambrosial 30 years. but occasionally the scenes roused old insecurities that have lain dormant for a long time. i was instantly transformed from a confident, successful adult into a gawky junior high kid again.

this phenomenon of being confronted with buried sentiments reminded me of a question recently posed by my friend laura: to reconnect or not to reconnect? she pondered the emotional effects of renewing lost social ties online, and posited that perhaps we’re all just a little too available. i think i’ve found a response to the question of why social media can make grown adults regress back to teenagers.

nearly a year and a half ago there was an article in the new york times titled brave new world of digital intimacy. in the article, social psychologists compared the advent of incessant online contact to living in a small town where everyone knows your business. now that we never lose touch with old friends, we are always trapped in that community we grew up in.

“Psychologists and sociologists spent years wondering how humanity would adjust to the anonymity of life in the city…a world of lonely people ripped from their social ties. We now have precisely the opposite problem.“

this “ambient awareness,” where every move is observed and shared, is reminiscent of high school. when you’re constantly aware of your friends’ activities, you tend to compare and measure every accomplishment, good fortune, and exciting event against your own. and with everyone trying mightily to paint a beautiful, exotic, auspicious existence to the online world, it’s easy to feel inadequate.

fortunately, my past teenage anxiety doesn’t stay long enough to even shake off the dust, and i welcome the vast majority of memories and reconnections. but it’s still strange to me how a stroll down memory lane can be as mood altering as the original experience.

Posted in okieOLIO