Throwing Away Pictures of Ourselves

The last three years have been looking back.

That coincides with this blog almost perfectly.

But for some reason, I’m looking back less.

I find myself not as interested in who I was.

What’s right in front of me holds more appeal.

Is that the reason I threw out all the memorabilia on this move?

Is H finding the same thing? A loss of interest in who we were? I saw she’d thrown away old photos of herself — and even the kids. It felt like a violent rejection of who we’ve been. Of the ghosts that make us who we are.

Yet, looking at the letters from the old friends and women I’d loved I have to confess: I simply didn’t feel anything. Instead I thought, Why am I holding on to this?

I haven’t thought of Rachel in years. I haven’t read this letter from her since I opened it the first time 30 or more years ago.

Ascha has kids in Oakland now. Does she remember this moment captured in the polaroid of us in front of a bookstore?

And so it went.

Maybe we’re really ready to say farewell to the ideas of who we were — preserved in frames that sit on our bookshelves and in letters we keep in shoeboxes at the back of the closet.