Digging Up Memories

The last few weeks I've been digging through closets and boxes and unearthing all sorts of magical, time traveling things...like the adoption papers for one of my Cabbage Patch Kids...a musical I started (and never finished) in middle school...my Mock Trial notebook (and notecards!) from high school. So many memories from my thirty some years wrapped up in one box!

I'm not the kind of person who has to keep every sentimental thing. Moving around taught me how to let go. But for the last seven and a half years I've been anchored to the same spot and that has allowed for a bit more accumulation, which is why I've been reorganizing and purging. For me, it's really not so much about the thing, it's about the memories associated with that thing. When I pulled those adoption papers out of that box, I was flooded with memories of the day I took Cy Buddy home.

I had gone shopping with my grandma and grandpa in Fergus Falls, MN and we ended up in a store with Cabbage Patch Kids. I picked Cy because he had these wonderful blue glasses and he seemed like a nice kid. We went back to Wahpeton, ND and took pictures of me and my new "baby." I know those pictures are around somewhere...

All week long I've been thinking about those grandparents and all the wonderful things we did together over the years. My grandma died of cancer when I was a senior in college and this past January my grandfather passed away. For most of my life I have lived over a thousand miles away from all of my grandparents. But they were all a big part of my life. It could have been otherwise.

Growing up, I spent every summer (except the one I went to Germany) traveling between sets of grandparents. I got to know them, be spoiled by them, and full-heart love them. Same with my aunts and uncles. Distance is only a problem of you let it be and we never let it.

And today, I'm missing them very, very much.