Last night Noah, Mark and I found ourselves in the seldom used guest bedroom. To occupy the boy I opened one of the hat boxes I use to stash mementos. Over the years I’ve saved ticket stubs, cards, programs, letters and more. As Noah got further into the box I began to relive things as I retrieved them off the floor. I was struck by two things. Firstly, that since the invention and popularization of email the letters we send and receive are few and far between. Aside from printing out the pivotal email exchanges of our lives, there is no way to preserve them for our future reference. That’s sad. And secondly, I realized that I’ve lost track of so many people in my life. I found letters from friends from high school, University of Pittsburgh, and my London exchange program with whom I am no longer in touch. And these people really meant something to me, but now it’s as if they disappeared. High school friends don’t seem so pronounced because I’m still connected with a few high school friends, Patrice in particular. But I’m not in touch with anyone who I met when I was at Pitt or a single soul that I met on my London exchange. It makes those times in my life feel as if they happened to another person, or in a dream. What happened to Johanna, Jamie, Katie, Darrin, Stefanie, and Q? The only evidence of their existence in my life are stuffed in a hat box. Even sadder still. I’m tempted to Google a bunch of people and see if I can find anyone’s email addresses.
I have been intending to print out most of this blog so that I can save it for Noah to look at one day, at least the posts that are pertinent to him. I guess I better get on that. I need to start his hat box.
3 comments:
This is embarrassing to admit, but I'll say it anyway: Last week, I spent a good hour or two Googling people from my high school yearbook. I never went to my reunions, and I was curious, even though I hated high school and was friends with almost no one in my graduating class. I was just curious.
Your memory of these people is what's important, not the bits left behind. And I say this as someone who has gone as far as saving gum wrappers for scrapbooks. I've started to dismiss the pack-rattiness of collecting memories, unless the pieces have a palpable significance.
I was going to suggest a while ago that you print the blog for Noah. You never know how long Blogger will be around, and how long it will be free.
I think blogger should add a feature for downloading your blog contents. they could charge for it and people would totally buy it. I would.
you're really lucky that you have so many people that you want to reconnect with. I wish I had people like that. everyone who is gone from my life is most likely gone for a reason. it leaves precious few behind but what endures is so much better to me. but you just fell out of touch with these people. I hope you do wind up reconnecting. and not with people like stupid roommate jen.
I am like Patrice and a lot of the people who are gone deserve to be gone. I do have two people from high school that I miss, and I google them too. I tried to reconnect with one of them, and I definitely got the vibe that she would be polite, but that was all. I bring back too many bad memories from high school, I think. We were a group of clinically depressed kids who found each other, and who needs a reminder of all of that.
You are lucky that you have a spouse is willing to live with your memories. I have whittled everything down to about one box of stuff and that's it. I don't think that Ethan's even happy about that box, but I will not part with it.
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