How much memorabilia do you keep from your past?

[StuffThat]

I'm 50 and faced with a few big crates of paper from my past. Uni calenders, letters from exes, work handbooks from fun projects.

My parents never, I mean never, remember or talk about my past. Even my wedding (sole comment at 25 years was 'it was a hot day' )

DH isn't much better. He remembers his own stuff and has me to chat about it but it doesn't seem to work the other way.

If I get rid of that 1998 work guide, will any one ever know I worked there? Do I need it to remember it? No one will ever jolt my memory about that crazy project in 2004, it that why I need the schedule?

What do you keep, do you wish you had more? What's the most important things?

This is at least my sixth time at trying to make sense of it all.

When I was at school, the Jackdaw series came out. An educational aid, facsimile documents about a historical event in a folder. I thought them fascinating, though could never afford them (I finally bought a vintage one from Oxfam recently). I replicated the concept for sorting my own memorabilia. Each 'subject' got a folder, and the essential papers went in. Over the years, this helped me weed out duplicates, irrelevant stuff and extraneous material. I was even able to throw out whole folders that seemed to become superfluous. Works for me.

I’m 58. I was heavily into a sport when I was younger and have lots of memorabilia from that. I also went to a foreign uni and have lots from there too. Work stuff, nope, not bothered about that at all, it never makes it to my house, it goes in the bin at work. I think it depends on whether you feel your work defines you, not judging either way, we are what we are.

I moved house five years ago and got rid of all that stuff. I don’t want DD to have to deal with it in the future, and my matric card from 1985 means nothing to her!

My plan is that next time I move, I will keep nothing in the attic and be very minimalistic. I’m dreading dealing with my parents’ attic, garage, and cupboards when the time comes.

I am not really sentimental so don't keep stuff unless it's really special. Maybe I will take a picture of something before binning it.

One box. It has a few old and significant cards, a couple of things from school and uni, some letters and postcards. Things like that.

I've got some photos somewhere

Not a lot, but I am quite attached to the things I have kept.

I have two cuddly toys which actually are (embarrassingly since I am 42) in my bedroom, and in my kitchen cupboard, some old, broken kitchen scales I remember using for baking with my mum who died quite young.

I am retired and have recently been culling old paperwork. I have got rid of a lot but am keeping core stuff.
I have my school/uni certificates and have got rid of half of school reports and other school stuff. Same with my DC stuff.
I got rid of most wedding cards, condolence cards when family members died, paperwork from parents and husband's death, work stuff, wedding invites, theatre programmes. I still have all personal letters and around one third of other stuff. It's not finished yet.
I need to do photos, which is a major job.
I have a childhood doll.

It seems you all feel pretty content with what you have.

I come cross ticket stubs - sometimes that's the only record I saw it, I often go alone. Maybe I keep it to remind myself I did do some things during the toddler years or that my 20s were busy, busy with friends I no longer see.

Wished I'd kept my Northern soul stuff,flyers ,patches of niters id been to,records.

I am 60 and have kept all my records from a teenager and later . I couldn't get rid of those.

Scrapbooks! I have 3 full of tickets, festival wristbands, cards, memories etc. I don’t keep everything, but enough that when I flick through the scrapbooks I feel reminded in a positive way of amazing memories :)
I am sentimental & do keep lots of things but everything has a place!!!

Wish I'd done the same.👍😁
I'm same age as yourself.

some photos

My mum didn’t keep enough from when I was young, I saw someone say their mum was a declutterer before it was a thing and I feel the exact same. I think keep the things that really matter to you, and that changes for everyone. I have a letter written from my boss when I was16 telling me I’d been a standout employee, and some Mandy and judys, my yearbook, a few projects I’ve done, photos and a few folders from college and concert tickets. I have dumped stuff I didn’t remember vividly or eg notes I’ll never look at again. It’s for you op, people can say they hate cleaning out people’s houses of their memories, but I say tough, if it’s not for them, it’s not for them😉

I had tonnes as i am quite sentimental, but honestly didnt want DS to have to chuck them away one day so decided to photograph them/scan them and have some books. Less for him to throw away if he decides to when i am gone but also much easier for me to flick through when i want to! Have a book for each decade (from late teens), sounds self indulgent but theyre just for me i dont ever expect anyone to be bothered to want to look through.

Scrapbooks! I have 3 full of tickets
That's what I hate about now you don't get tickets to keep any more for concerts or shows just a QR code. They don't really sell programs for concerts either anymore. Which are nice to keep for memories.

I keep sentimental papers from each "chunk" of my life in box files.
Longer-term, I'm writing down my memories in Word documents (not as co-ordinated as an autobiography, lots of individual paragraphs) and once something has made it to the Word document I get rid of papers connected to it or cull it down to one or two "keep forever" things - ideally I will end up with just one really useful box a lot of which is the folder of print-outs from Word.
Once I die I'd hope someone would like to keep the memories folder (even if it is a local history museum rather than a family member) but the rest of the box can be binned.