In defense of hoarding

I am, in the eyes of my loving boyfriend, an inveterate hoarder. I keep things in our tiny one bedroom apartment that he sees no use for. Stowed away in drawers, tucked up high in cupboards, these seemingly insignificant items, are the very bane of his existence. And, every so often he implores me to divest myself of these items in an attempt to balance our yin and yang or some other cosmic force he feels is out of whack when I accumulate too much of this "worthless" junk.

In fairness to him, there are things I do not need to keep, like some small tag from a piece of clothing I bought that I kept because I thought it was pretty or Christmas cards from people I worked with before I even met him, and with whom I no longer speak.

I know it comes from a place of love and a desire to help me be a more organized and efficient person, so I can't fault him for it. But it has got me thinking about why we hang on to the things that we do - an old jean jacket that is torn and frayed, a ticket stub from a train ride in Ireland, a newspaper clipping from years ago, Fisher Price toys etched with the dirt and wear of several generations of children or a mitten from a snow suit long since given away to another child.

Why do we feel the need to keep these things, and more importantly, why do we need to keep them close to us? What is it in us that is unable to let go of these things and what is it in us that prompts us to keep them in the first place?

We keep them, I think, because ultimately they connect us to who we are and where we have been. We keep them because they become symbols of times, places or events that held great meaning for us. We keep them because when we lose sight of ourselves, they become veritable touchstones of who we fundamentally are - and this in turn helps to ground us and guide us to where we are going.

These things, which may mean nothing to others become a veritable external hard drive for our memories, which these days are filled with an ever increasing volume of information, much of it useless. When we stumble on one of these things unexpectedly, when cleaning or searching for some other useful item, it becomes like a little gift to ourselves - a little teleport to a time or place that made our heart joyous.

Sometimes, as in the case of my grandmother who lovingly wrapped up the aforementioned mitten atop my birthday present last year, we get to share these items with others, as a way to show them how important and meaningful their presence in our life is.

So, I think I'll hang on to the old jean jacket, though I've since bought a new one, the hole in the elbow, has a story that I don't want to forget. That ticket stub from Ireland isn't going anywhere either and nor is the memory of the last vacation I took with two of my closest friends.

And, though I don't expect my boyfriend to curtail his filming of bi-annual episodes of "clean sweep" in our apartment, I do expect that one day, in the midst of a divesting frenzy, he'll stumble across the ticket from the first time he took me to the National Gallery and, even if only for a moment, he'll understand.