To be or not to be.... is a long drawn out process

I've started a new adventure.  It's taking it's toll on me and already I'm afraid.  I am taking things out of my basement and going through the 'keep or toss' game.  Of course, if it's mine... I keep it.  If it's maybe Del's Road and Track magazines from the 1500's - toss.  I have had quite an emotional time of it all actually.  I've already brought up a room full - sorted and cleared the room - mostly clothes and such that FOR SURE will come back into style... ya right.  (tossed)  I found several unfinished projects that still need to be addressed. (keep).  Part of the journey included boxes that I filled with the kids childhood things, like assorted toys that they particularly liked or were special to them.  Matt claimed most of his box, before the mice did - lucky for him.  The other boxes were sealed tight.  I thought perhaps that I would have the kids over for dinner, let them go through their boxes, and then take home what they wanted to keep - ok - because 3 of the 4 have their own places now right?  That way the pressure is off me to make the choices of - yes - keep or toss.  Ryan returned home on Friday night for a visit - I had just pulled up his box - and as he opened it he said exactly what I had hoped to hear years ago when I sealed up the boxes.... "Wow - I just had a flood of memories mom!"  (did I call that or what?)  Some things we think are important are just not after many years - and the things that eh - so so... become that which we treasure.  The items in the box do not make who we are but they represent a part of us as we started out on this journey of life.  The items become their own chapter in our books of memories to be savored.  I love being a childhood memory hoarder... I'm way to sentimental, and an obsessive pack rat to say the least.  I've been taking out items and just smiling from ear to ear - remembering when, remembering the dreams I had for my kids, and the good and bad times experienced.  To see them now - and to see what is in their boxes - just make me drift back into time, and to be grateful for those moments in life.  Now - of course there are other critters living down there - the mice have moved out - because they didn't like the living quarters (death traps and poison), but the spiders LOVE it down there.  Each day (and believe me there will be many days of this adventure still to come) I promised myself I would do ONE thing of significance.  Yesterday - being the Sabbath and all - I needed to keep it kind of spiritual cleaning.  So.... I sent 12 spiders off to the afterlife - and hopefully they are happy to see the pearly gates of heaven.  Well - that is if they are dead yet - you see, I sucked them up in the vacuum and I believe that they will eventually eat each other inside the bag.  Good times.  How refreshing it was to not have to decided to 'keep or toss' those spiders.  My mom (Grandma June) would sleep down there in the summertime when she would come to stay.  At our nightly prayers, Mandy asked Heavenly Father to 'Not let the Black Widow Spiders get grandma downstairs."  Needless to say - it was pretty quiet after the prayer (I call it pondering....)  I guess I should have believed mom when she said, "Something kept going across my face!"  I kind of picture her being like Frodo on Lord of the Rings when he's all wrapped up in the giant spider web cocoon.  Well - here's to cleaning, to tossing and keeping, to the memories we make and keep and keep and keep.  Did I mention that there are 2 special boxes down there with MY childhood things in them?  (nope - no scary clowns....)  I hope that my memories will always choose to stay in my soul.  Perhaps, I'll drag out those old diaries from 2nd grade when Nolan Gunnell was my recess boyfriend....  unless the spiders have wrapped them in a web.  Happy Memories - Happy Hoarding.  Maybe they should do a show on it.... (;