Can a Year Disappear?

I'm supposed to be grading essays on Macbeth, but, whenI feel the urge to write I need to take advantage.

Today I received a gift from one of the young women on my roster of students I counsel through the college admission process. It was my first gift as a teacher and the gesture overwhelmed me in a way I wasn't expecting. I'm doing my job and, while I was warned (not really the right word) that I would receive gifts from my students, I felt something more than I had expected. For one, there's the student invloved; a young lady I have become fond of even though we interact less and less now that most of her applications are done. She's intelligent and creative in the same way that the women I call my closest friends are, and I admire her for being so at such a young age (listen to the Grandma over here). Then, there was the card, a note from her mother, somthing simple, that said thank you for doing your job and being suppoirtive of us. And that, well, that put me over the edge of sentimentalitiy. I told the student and her accompanying friend how much I love receiving cards, and it's absolutely true. A psychiatrist would probably diagnose me as a hoarder of some kind if he or she took a look at the hundreds of cards and envelops I have kept over the year. Birthday cards, Christmas cards (Grinch that I am), graduation cards, thank you cards, postcards that I have received and postcards I wrote but never mailed, envelopes the cards came in,and envelopes that match cards that I will never send. I have boxes of them.

So now I wonder: What would happen if I threw them all away?

It's not just the cards. I have pictures (okay, fairly normal), maps of foreign cities, tickets from museaums I've visited, and subway and bus tickets from Italy, France, Austria and England. There are notes my host brother wrote for me, scraps of paper from journals I've since thrown away, and guide books that are nearing ten years old. Despite my (few and far between) organizing benders, they still make a mess. And looking through them always leads to me finding a Parisian Metro ticket in the oddest of places.

So what would happen if I threw it all away?

Would I forget graduating from high school or college?

If I didn't have the journal page dated 10/17/10 would I forget that days after leaving my parents behind at an airport gate in Philadelphia my Great aunt passed away while I was settling into a new life in Florence?

Without the torn map of that same city, would I forge that my school was located at 10 Borgo Santa Croce and that I lived on via Masaccio with two Americans, three teenagers from Mexico, and a Japanese woman named Mayumi?
Could I find Shot Cafe? And Pino's? And Gelateria dei Neri?

Would I remember my first trip to Amsterdam without that useless map from the Bulldog? Does that map remind me of how cold that city was in November, days of my family celebrated Thanksgiving in the United States? Do those postcards from the van Gogh museaum remind me of how fast my heart beat the first time I stood in front of van Gogh's portrait of his bedroom (still my favorite).

If I got rid of all the memories of Paris, would I forget the second time I had my heart broken by a boy and the first time I had my heart broken by a friend?

If I get rid of all those things do I forget that glorious, heartbraking, self-affirming, joyous year?

And what about the years that followed?

There are memories of those years in these boxes as well. Do I really need to keep the momentos of friendships I no longer maintain? Empty boxes that once contained brand new pairs of earrings that no longer have mates, do I need those? What about the blank immigration forms from South Korea and Thailand? And the hotel room key from Osaka? What purpose do they serve?'s

When I think of the time in between those trips, life in New York and three years in Iowa. The memories are countless, they are of books and late nights writing and conversations with friends, author's signatures,a and, tears. Lots of tears.

If I divest myself of all the small things, do those years disappear? What am I saving them for? Who am I saving them for? The children I may never have, the old woman I am going to become? Why would they mean anything to anyone other who I am, at this moment, or who I was ten, nine years ago?

It occurs to me that I have written all this without once looking at a journal, card, or any other piece of paper. My attachment to these piles of fiber, while very real, is perhaps unnecessary and yet, I can't see life without them. It's my way of holding onto all those years.