Coffin

I will admit that the following post could lead some to believe that I am a tiny bit obsessive with a smidgen of psycho thrown in. This will also enlighten you about some things you really did not want to know about me - but if I can laugh at it so can you.

I don't exactly remember when I was given my hope chest from my Mammy but it must have been in junior high or early in high school. Since the hope chest looks like a coffin that is exactly what it has been called since Day 1 in my room.

In November we had to move the coffin from one room into another. In order to successfully do this the coffin had to be emptied. Brian stepped up to the plate and completed this task. After this was done I realized he did this to escape hearing me go on and on about each and every object. I am not exactly a sensitive person but I am incredibly sentimental. Each item in my coffin was in there for a reason; and while some of those reasons escape me now, others I remember.

Apparently I saved everything in this coffin. I have no idea why I kept 87% of the items. Here is a look at some of the randomness of my adolescence (and parts of college). Feel free to laugh - I laughed for a good six hours going through this stuff. There is no order to this presentation...I just took pictures as I saw different things. I could have put them in chronological order but that would have taken some thinking. Let's not do much of that.

My collection of Hard Rock Cafe menus. Why? No idea.

Second semester junior year schedule. I have no other schedules from college so I'm not sure why I kept this one. I like how I left Music 101 until almost my senior year.

My wedding bouquet. I know why I kept this.

Jamison found my volleyball knee pads from high school.

A square remnant of my bedroom carpet in my parents old house. I chose this carpet color when I was three. That should explain it. I will always keep this.

This was thrown out 30 seconds after the picture was taken. This was a costume from one Spring Sing performance at Harding. Our theme must have been "What Not To Wear".

I wore this watch for 7th and 8th grade. I loved it. And the necklace is a Best Friends necklace that is divided into thirds. Michelle (Morris) Mostoller and Kim (Hofschild) Cimuchowski have the other two thirds.

My suite mates Reagan (Weaver) Dennison and Mindy (Baker) Lucas made this birthday card for me our freshman year of college. I know you probably can't read a lot of the things on the card but it is so creative and funny and I will never throw this away.

Incredibly random. An issue of the Times Union from 1973. This was before my parents even moved to Albany so your guess is as good as mine as to where I found this. And yes, this was thrown away.

Awwww, my Brownie and Girl Scout sashes. I am still friends with one of the girls from my troop 88. Albeit, it's on facebook but that still counts.

I love the Diary of Anne Frank. To strengthen my love I used her book as a topic for about 50 essays through high school. It fits so many topics. In 1995 Miep Gies (the employee of Mr. Frank who helped hide the Franks and later helped with the publication of the diary) was speaking at one of the local universities here in Albany so I went to hear her speech. I brought along my book in hopes that I would meet her and by hanging out in the auditorium after the speech I was able to get her autograph. I still can't believe I shook hands with a woman who knew Anne Frank!

I know why I kept this. It's a page from my freshman year at college. I loved reading it and seeing what took up so much of my time and thoughts. And apparently there was a lot of coffee involved.

Of course, my Milli Vanilli tape. "Blame it on the rain, yeah, yeah." I can't wait until my kids are old enough to find this as funny as I do.

And this is where I get real random. Why do I have these clippings? What do they mean? What did I think was so important that I needed to save these in the coffin? In the trash...

This is great. My mom mailed me this picture of my sister when I was at Harding. This is what her note days:

There were no more wallets. I thought you might want to put this up by your desk.

-Mom.

You can argue with it.

This will be shown at my mother's funeral. I should start compiling all those pictures and fun items now so I'm all prepared

And these are a collection of my glasses. Because who doesn't save each piece of eye ware from the time they were in 4th-12th grade?

By now I have a theory as to why I kept so many newspapers. When I was doing all this collecting I had no idea something called "The Internet" would be created thus eliminating my fear of forgetting everything that happened while I was alive. Could I have thought, "if I don't save this paper I will never remember that OJ Simpson was found not guilty?" That would have been tragic.

All of my organizers from 9th grade to senior year of college. I had fun reading some of these.

Sadly, with the invention of my beloved Blackberry I have no need for an organizer anymore. When I am 79 how will I ever know what I did in April 2008 without a handwritten organizer? Hopefully my 79 year old self will forgive my 30 year old self.

And yes, this one shows that I wrote down exactly what I wore each day. I have my entire wardrobe schedule for 8 years in these organizers. Want to know what I wore the first day of college? Or possibly what I wore the day of my 16th birthday? No problem - I can look that up for you!

And this pile. This pile is beautiful and incredibly scary. These are all my journals from 2nd grade on. There aren't that many entries until 6th grade and then I was pretty consistent through high school. I mostly stopped writing once I went to college but I still kept one (and still do) that I wrote brief notes in on important days. I kind of consider this blog a journal so I guess I haven't exactly stopped writing.

And that is just a small portion of the junk that was in my coffin. It was cleaned out and is now safely hidden in a closet in what will soon be Jamie's new bedroom. It was not easy throwing some of the things away or going through some of the things I saved. I don't even know if my kids or grandkids would ever be interested in my going through my memories...but if they are I am well prepared!