Photographs and Memories

I love it when someone sends me a photo via e-mail.  I can oooh and ahhh over the cute baby / puppy / kitten; be green with envy over the Eiffel Tower / Mickey Mouse / sandy beach; marvel at the beautiful bride / how much the kids have grown / the trophy win; be impressed with the new car / house / boat.  And then I can hit delete.  No storing them in a shoebox / drawer / shopping bag.

Not that I don't love a little stroll down memory lane.  Flipping through the pages of a well organized photo album.  With names and places.  But I've just spent many hours sifting through a loose assortment of photos stored in shoeboxes, drawers, and shopping bags.  Because -- and be honest -- when was the last time you actually made the effort to produce that scrapbook you swore you would? For me it was over 13 years ago after a trip to DisneyLand.  After that, it was shoeboxes all the way. So what to do with all those photos?

No longer know whose baby that was?...Gone.

Weddings where I was a guest but friend to neither bride nor groom?...Gone.

695 of the 700 photos of my sister's cats?...Gone.

Generic landscapes, blurry faces, ugly pics of self?...Gone, gone, and gone.

The real kicker comes when a relationship has ended.  What to do with those photos?  For me, life is too short to spend time with people who don't make me happy -- even if that person lives on only in photos.  It's hard to do, like erasing a part of my life.  But if they're something I never want to look at again?...Gone.

And just so you know I'm not a totally heartless bitch devoid of all sentiment -- there's still plenty of photos left in the shoebox.  Maybe one day, I'll put them into a scrapbook.

Maybe.