Discarding the Past

I wasn't even thinking about getting rid of anything yesterday. I'd forgotten my vow, but the vow found me. I went to get my wedding hat, which was in my cedar chest, for Booie to wear to a dress-up tea/birthday party (an adorable idea!). I don't have much in my cedar chest� a few wedding items, high school letter jacket and memorabilia, first diary. I usually have so much piled up on top of the chest that it's not worth the effort to visit my past. It's only when I need something that I must move all the boxes, clothes and other junk that inevitably ends up on the cushioned lid. It's so rare that I do open the chest that I often forget what's in there. That makes it fun.

After I dug out the hat, I read some of the last entries in my old diary. I was surprised to find I had written in there even when I was keeping a notebook for a journal. The last entry was 1988. I swear, that is just one full book of embarrassment for me. It's no wonder I keep the thing locked under a mountain of clutter. But it is awfully fun to laugh at myself and see how much life, and your perspective, can change.

My revised perspective became much more obvious when I found a bag of pictures I had forgotten. I thought I'd gathered all my pictures together and organized them chronologically. One day, I will get them all in albums. That elusive One Day. Some pictures will never go into albums though, and almost all of those I found were in that category. They were from my first marriage and right before it. There were pictures of skinny me, pregnant me and almost naked me. All the pictures had me with my one and only perm and original hair color. Ack!

There is nothing like seeing yourself frozen in time to correct your memory. I don't remember my hair being that awful, but there had to be some reason I will never get a perm again. Seeing that picture reminded me what that reason was. My hair was that awful. It also reminded me why I methodically cover my roots every month.

My natural hair color is the color ugly. Didn't know there was such a color? There is. I'm going to submit it to Crayola� and tell them to name it "Ugly."

If you don't count the hair and the ex-husband, most of the pictures were happy memories for me. I found pictures of a friend who killed himself two years ago during better times, and it made me smile to remember he did once have happiness in his life. I saw my first newborn baby in all his jaundiced glory. I saw myself in a candid photo from behind, in a time I thought I was fat, and realized I was far from it. I even enjoyed the pictures of me in my ninth month of pregnancy, not seeing the whale my memory retained.

These photos were ones I didn't like at one time. Now, they were telling me I've had a good life so far; it wasn't all bad. I still don't think I'll be putting most of them in albums, at least until I've done a little work with them in the photo editor. John wants to see pictures of me with my ex as much as I want to see pictures of him with his. Technology sure is handy sometimes. Some will just stay put away, like half-naked not fat me, and some will be sent to the ex and his new family, like he and baby Hammy together. A few were thrown away because some memories are better left forgotten.