So long kid

Today we celebrated Boyfriend's birthday at his parent's house with suburban Mexican food and cake with icing roses (my favorite).

Before we were allowed to watch him open presents we had to watch him sort through his childhood, which was about the same level of entertaining just a little dustier.

His parents have made that quintessential parental move of subconsciously telling you how much they don't love you by turning your childhood bedroom into a guest room instead of keeping it a shrine to you. Not to say that Boyfriend's parents don't love him, but still...

So we got to the house and in the living room were stacks of boxes and piles of old stuff, most of it has been in Boyfriend's bedroom for the better part of 15 years and so he dutifully went through his childhood and threw away the memories that were less important and valuable.

While its true that no one should keep EVERYTHING they obtain over a lifetime (although without these people, the show Hoarders wouldn't exist, which would be sad) it is still hard to get rid of things. So many things from childhood are hard to remember anyway, mostly because of the booze and the TV plot lines that come up later in life to take their place that I feel like we need trinkets and photos to help us, and so having to decide which of those memories we toss in the goodwill pile is difficult.

And lets be real - 3 or 4 boxes of stuff were saved. Some of it is practical life stuff and some of it was stuff I demanded be saved (namely a boy scout uniform that is going to make a sweet Halloween costume) and then the rest are the most valuable memories.

In Boyfriend's case there were the obvious things like photos and college graduation stuff but then there was also:
About 20 trophies and plaques talking about how amazing he was in high school both academically and sport-ily
An official paper with his SAT scores
Letterman jacket (no seriously - with his name and captain stars and everything. Sick)
A tee-shirt signed by Billy Joe from Green Day
A Colts poster

This is an interesting cross section of someone, I think. The things they think are important from childhood.

My sister kicked me out of my childhood bedroom when I went to college and all my stuff got put up in the attic for the most part so its been out of sight/mind for a good eight years but eventually (read: May of this year) I am going to have to start the process and I'm curious what I will keep with the proverbial gun to my head. What was the most important part of my childhood?

No idea. Lets just hope it doesn't come to that.