Some things must be kept: Here is what to keep.

Some things must be kept, but you cannot hoard everything. So how do you know what to keep and what to get rid of?

Sometimes I get so busy with house cleaning chores that I forget to do the things that I feel driven to do, to write. Writing was always my default. From age eight, it was what I did. I have volumes of journals and blogs. Occasionally, when I was a kid, there was even a poem or a short story.

Oh, and letters, I have written so many letters.

Letters.

Remember letters? I have boxes of old letters. There are the letters I wrote to grandparents who have passed on, letters they wrote to me, and letters from friends. Letters to my husband serving in Iraq, letters from the war, letters to him when he was in Afghanistan, and letters other people wrote Alan too.

So many letters. This is in the forefront of my mind because I have been cleaning out the storage room, and I keep finding more and more of them.

I took the ones from the war deployments, hole-punched them, and put them in binders for safe-keeping and easier reading.

Those were letters of the daily business of life.

In the early years, mail was all we had. There were no phone calls or email. Writing was the only way to stay connected.

Then last week I came upon boxes and bags of non-war letters.

These were a different level of personal. Letters you write because you just want to stay in touch with someone far away. Letters Alan wrote me when we were engaged, counting down the days to our wedding, while he was in Washington state and I was in Alabama.

Those letters are a different level of personal. I cannot hole-punch those or lay them out for others to read. There’s no business there, only hearts talking.

I found some letters I wrote my favorite Grandma. We called her Maw-Maw. I wrote those in elementary school, and they were adorable. Those I taped into my scrapbooks.

But the long, personal ones from my young adulthood, held a different place.

I folded them back up, placed them neatly back in their envelopes, and put those back in their shoeboxes. Then I took the shoebox and put it in a big Rubbermaid tote.

My kids are going to do so much complaining one day when they have to clean out all my sentimental stuff.

I don’t care though. Some things must be kept.

The things that touch a deep chord within us, things tied to memories that cannot be replaced, those things are what we must keep. The letters, the photos, and the scrapbooks, those things die with us. How else could we dig them up and cry years later? Haaa! But also, how would future generations ever know anything about us if we don’t keep those letters and photos.