Flotsam

In preparation for Baby J, Mike and I have been sorting through and storing the unnecessary things in our small apartment to find a place to put the wee lad when he comes. Inevitably, this meant a full-frontal attack on my white Tupperware drawers full of "stuff." This is stuff that in the past I have not permitted to be put into storage, claiming the sundries housed therein to be necessary to my daily functioning. I delve into the drawers maybe once or twice a month (something, I remind you, I could not do if it was in storage). And yesterday while I was reading, Mike decided to try and sort through the beast himself. A daring proposition.

I heard clattering and tinkling as he dumped the first drawer on the floor. He came into our room mid-sentence and wanted to know how attached I was to my leopard print slap bracelet. He meant it as a joke, thinking I would laugh at myself and toss the silly item into the trash with a hearty guffaw. Oh no. "I loooove that bracelet." (Insert pathetic, pouty look). Mike looked at me incredulously, hoping to pick up on some sarcasm in my voice. "No really, I really love it. Can I keep it?" Then ensued a discussion of when I last wore it (which, perhaps pathetically, was only a few years ago) and a discussion of whether it was cool (you can guess who was on which side of that debate...). Mike, clearly defeated on only the first item, turned the task of sorting through my drawers back to me, telling me I could keep whatever I wanted as long as we could put some of it in storage. Wanting to be adult, to slough off the flotsam of childhood, I went into the room and sat in front of a floor littered with nostalgic debris.

Thirty minutes later I emerged, tearfully (I am indubitably a sentimental sap) with a pile of items...the little inlaid box my father bought for me in India that had been smashed in half during one of my many moves and which I had tried to save (with little success) with clear plastic tape, the now-rusted anklet I wore in high school that I bought for myself at Claire's Boutique, the sun glasses I wore during my eighth grade orchestra trip to Disney World, the bracelet my first-kiss boyfriend bought for me in an effort to replace a bracelet given to me by a high-school boy friend, three tubes of lip gloss given to me in various gift baskets that were too fruity for my taste but that I couldn't bear to throw away because it would be wasteful (admittedly gross, I know) and that I might use during Armegeddon. And that was only out of one drawer (not to mention the other things I tossed...among them a mysterious Winnie the Pooh colored eraser and the key to my high school car: a navy egg-shaped Previa...and, yes, the slap bracelet). After I had thrown the loot away, sniffling with sadness at having to say goodbye to my little treasures, Mike held me and patted my head for being so brave.