Sifting through the mysterious treasure of my basement

I'll start by admitting that I'm a hopeless packrat. I'm sitting here in a oil and paint stained Vuarnet shirt that at some point I had tie dyed yellow and pink. Once a favourite, then a favourite work shirt - but do I still need it? My last Steetsville Meadowvale soccer shirt - I was number 6 for the IGA sponsered team - should I part with it? What about the two warm shirts that I'd painted myself - they're ratty but they still fit. My highschool spirit suit is hideosous and I'd never wear it again - yet its a piece of my history and who I am. The signatures and graffetti a record of an era of my life. Then there are t-shirts of real canadian historical significance - my "Let's debate not seperate, Canada's 125th anniversary and "Kim Campbell for Primeminister" - can I let them go since I probably won't ever wear them.

I have a collection of Doe Lake T-shirts. They are mostly in rough shape after a summer of wearing them every saturday and sunday followed by a few summers of wearing them on other days. They're unique and XXL - ah what to do? My graduation sweatshirt from grade 8, my souviner washington dc tshirt that I wore like all the time in highschool. My searsfest t-shirt. And this is just clothing - never mind the junk, nicknacks and dust collectors. I found two tattered canvas knapsacks patched and covered in graffiti - again a record of my high school days. Probably both are carriers of serious grossness and neither would survive being washed. I haven't even looked at the boxes of cards, letters, papers, notebooks, drawings and schoolwork from Lakehead and highschool. I found a gift that never got sent, and a photo that was a gift from Tania Killian. Stuffed animals without names, jewelry a gr. 4 student gave me for christmas when I was a student teacher - she'll be graduating from highschool this year.

Oh, and hats - like the australlian one that my mom bought me to keep from wearing the scuzzy ball cap that I'd been wearing (both of the worst of those I haven't seen...) and miles of corking (maybe I should make that mat) and programs from plays I went to see and slippers I got at the cottage and all the bits and pieces that were a part of making me who I am that would have no value or meaning to anyone else. Sigh. So it is back to trying on clothes for me. I'm not sure whether to be glad or sorry that my parents have lived here long enough to get to this point.

Wish me luck and the will to sort the value from the nonsense.

Jennith