Nostalgia

After a 3 hour round trip drive to Charlotte this morning, my dad casually mentions that he'd like me to clean out my closet. Oh, and load Microsoft Office onto his computer. And mom needs help with an Amazon package. None of that is terribly interesting, but the contents of my closet were tremendously entertaining! (For me. You just have to read about them.)

A few highlights:

First, we picture my teeth molds. As in, this is what I would look like today if not for modern orthodontia. Let us all take a moment and thank the Lord for modern orthodontia.

Next, we are featuring my Pizza Hut hat. This is the only one I found, probably the lone wolf after the other 75 flew out of my trunk when I was rear ended in a car accident. My boss gave me a new hat every day I worked because I hated wearing them and "forgot" every time.

Merlin! Remember Merlin? I need not say more. Piglet desecrated its memory by talking on it like a phone. The 80s were horrified and have filed a complaint via Etch a Sketch.

More with the teeth. I'm not sure what my obsession with teeth was, but I couldn't bear to part with them once I figured out the tooth fairy wasn't real. The big ones with roots were a gift from the dentist, but I can't remember if they are the four permanent molars I had pulled, or my wisdom teeth. A life mystery, I tell you.

And, holy Bon Jovi, it's my cassette tape collection!

And my one remaining record. I tried, but could not locate the Cabbage Patch Kids' Garden record that we used for tunes when roller skating in the basement.

The real treasure, though, were the six boxes of letters I found. I had forgotten how much we used to write! Many are from my first couple of years of college before everyone consistently had email. I could spend hours going through these letters, and probably will at some point. It really makes me want to pick up a pen and write some folks some letters. It's a shame that stamps are practically 50 cents now. And that letters are a weird novelty thing. I mean, my roommates and I wrote letters over breaks! Eddie and I wrote to each other weekly! There were whole back and forth conversations in letters that continued week to week! There was a FIGHT between my two best friends that was kind of horrible and got mailed to me to keep me in the know. Letters from home, telling me to save my money and here's a bill and don't forget to send your grandmother a thank you note. Letters from friends from middle school and my sister, who made envelopes out of maxi pad ads from magazines. It's like a different world....hard to believe HOW different it is now, only 15 years later.

This was terribly disjointed writing, but it kind of matches the randomness that I uncovered in my closet. Now what to do with these t-ball trophies and this old recorder?