The Price of Nostalgia, Part 2

Last time, I wrote about how I handled an attack of nostalgia that made me want to listen to my collection of 45s. (You can read it here: The Price of Nostalgia.) Instead of digitizing them, I opted to create a playlist in Spotify. Which I am still enjoying thoroughly, by the way.

A couple of people asked if I had thrown away my collection after creating the playlist. Well, no, I didn’t.

Why, you may ask? I can’t play the 45s anymore (no record player), and I never plan to digitize them, so why keep them?

The reason is that it makes me happy to have them. They represent joyful moments from my youth, and they take up very little room. The pink carrying case is so cute. They are way up at the top of my closet, where I only keep things that I seldom use. So they’re not taking up space that could be used for something I access more frequently.

Sometimes, new clients say to me, “You’re going to make me throw everything out, aren’t you?” I reassure them that I am not going to do that. Even so, I think I surprise them when we come across something that seems to be meaningful to them, even if they aren’t using it anymore, and I tell them it’s perfectly okay to keep it. It’s just not okay to keep it mixed in with things they are still using, because then it gets in the way.

I’ve previously quoted the Australian organizer Peter Walsh, who said, “If everything is important, then nothing is important.” (See When Books Become Memorabilia and Organizing Memorabilia.) If you keep everything, then things lose their meaning. Curating the truly special items helps them to stand out and prevents you from being overwhelmed.

I mentioned that one justification for keeping my case of 45s is that it doesn’t take up much room. If something important to you does take up a lot of room, consider taking a photo of it and then framing the photo. You can keep the memory alive without devoting the space.