Right now, I’m in the process of getting rid of clutter from my room, whether it be clothes, old toys, and books. Upon cleaning, I ran across a tote bag full of old correspondence. The bag includes but is not limited to: old letters from penpals in junior high and high school, silly letters among friends, birthday cards, and old journals.
The bag has just been sitting there collecting dust and I really don’t know what to do with it. Part of me wants to part with much of it, but another part of me wants to keep everything.
Readers, this is where I ask for your advice. What do you suggest?
Image from Gelbooru.
I’ve been having the same problem, actually. What I decided to do was looking through everything and decide if it has any actual importance. Like, was I still in contact with the people who had written me the notes and letters, or not? Depending on that you can usually decide if you want it still. Otherwise, I just think about what I think I really need around for the future: anything with helpful information, or things I know I’ll want to go back and look at so many years down the road. I know that’s not aways easy to discern, but it’s worth it to cut down on clutter.
Otherwise, I decided things like envelopes, things that could no longer be read and things like invitations (especially to events I never ended up going to) could go. Envelopes are just excess, not being able to read something doesn’t give it any value and invitations are only useful when you first get them.
I hope this helps some, Lene! Let us know how it goes. :)
I usually keep anything that was handwritten (letters, cards, etc) and throw away anything with no personal touch whatsoever (old Valentines bought from the store with just the person’s name on it, invitations to events that I didn’t go to..). I tend to just keep everything and then go through it again after a good amount of time to see if there’s still some sort of emotional attachment to each item… like if I have a good feeling after reading it or if I just feel icky or no emotion.
Have fun with the cleaning process!
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Keep them! Make a time capsule or something. Put it in a locker somewhere and keep the key (if they let you ^^;;) then make a goal to come back for it in like 5/10/15 years or something >_>;;
But whatever you decide I wish you luck!!
Keeeeep it >___<
You can just store them somewhere, like in a closet or storage room. It'll bring back good memories when you've forgotten about them like 10 years from now.
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In a way this will make you look pretty wasteful. I always get rid of things i got just a few weeks ago, then i think about the money wasted and how i was wasteful. I could have had extra cash if i wouldn’t had spent money on something i don’t want today. I can’t give you a complete suggestion because i have my way of doing things. I try and be as little cluttered as possible. In fact i need to throw away some clothes i don’t want anymore this weekend. Still wondering if i should completely throw out all my audio CD’s because i don’t use any type of CD player anymore.
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@Lene-chan: Ah, everyone is different. Personally, I’ve kept not only pen-pal letters from college, but especially as a writer, even old reports and fiction from high-school, lol. How the old thoughts and feelings come rushing back 10 or 15 years later! But if you really need to cut the clutter, I’d recommend scanning the old letters and cards, then ditching the physical paper. It’s up to you. Didn’t you get a new hard drive anyway? ^_~
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I’d say keep em; them mementos can be real fun to read through every once in a while
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Tricky as things like this hold such memories, I would keep the diarys or journals, and maybe the cards from those who you hold dearest. Honestly I would try and recycle the rest if you can. Over the years we tend to build a collection of things we don’t really need but can’t seem to let go of. You need to just be ruthless and sort through your stuff. I have started sending my friends free happy birthday cards online rather than sending lots of paper cards. So much easier than and cheaper.