Artifacts

Our impending move has forced us to do things we should have been doing all along; things like sorting through our belongings and tossing the junk.

What strikes me most lately is the connections to the past, the sentimental items that remind you of other times, other people, other priorities. My wife and I both found ourselves making the face that accompanies difficult choices: a grimace where the things of the past are weighed against the practicality of the present, and the sentimental thing loses by a close margin, and enters the whirlwind of trash that roughly blows into anonymous history. The face gives unspoken voice to thoughts like:

"This used to mean so much to me."
"Cliff would have liked this."
"I really thought this would work out. How wrong I was."

I hate that face; both making it, and seeing it on my wife.