Pack rat-ness is in my blood

So, my dad dropped by my place yesterday so he could park his car while he had a meeting downtown. Since he was coming, he decided to bring me this box of odds and ends they've fished out through the process of cleaning stuff out of my old room. And when I say odds and ends, I really mean it.

Included in the box:

• a doll that I don't remember ever belonging to me, but also looks like it's from the 70's
• a poem that I wrote in grade 4 that had a photocopy of a photo of me, and laminated to put on display in class; the poem consisted of 4 lines and was quite ridiculous
• a project on squirrels that I did in grade 3. It's written entirely in French since I was in French immersion at the time. Again, this was also laminated
• not one, but two penholders full of pens and pencils

For the pens and pencils, I'm pretty much going to throw them away. I haven't used them in 10 years, so I obviously can't be missing them too much. I'm not even going to go through them because once I do, I know I'm going to want to keep certain ones. I'm trying very hard to break out of my pack-rat tendencies.

But the school project stuff is what really cracked me up. I think it's a hint from my parents that they'd kinda like to keep it, but just don't want to keep it at their place. But I have a little condo compared to their two-story house, so there's a 99% chance that I'm just going to ditch it.

There were some photo albums that I'm planning to keep, but other than that, I think I'm gonna chuck it all. I don't think I'm really that nostalgic that I have to keep it all in a place that's easily accessible so I can reminisce on a regular basis. And if you wind up shoving it away and forgetting about it until the next time you have to do a massive cleaning, then what's the point, right?

I'm trying to convince myself of this so I don't fall back into my "let's keep it for the heck of it" instinct.