Unsentimental.

“Mama, why is my artwork in the bin?”
Erm… What’s that now?
“The Easter egg painting and basket I brought home today are in the bin”.

“It’s not in the bin, baby. It’s in the recycling. Those are two very different kinds of bins. The recycling bin is where I keep all my favourite art”. Mini-Me collects herself, gives me an unconvinced side-eye, takes her ‘artwork’ out of my favourite place to store all her excellent and not at all overrated artistic efforts and sticks it on the fridge in protest.

I sort of feel bad. But if I’m totally honest I mostly feel bad because I got caught.

It’s not that I don’t appreciate the genius of my child’s expression or proud that she can colour in pictures, it’s just that 4 years of nursery attendance have provided me with quite the collection of ‘art’, and by my calculations, if I’m to keep every Easter, Valentine’s Day, Christmas, Diwali, Halloween, Mother’s Day and God knows what else Day card, and crafts created during International Space, Book, Sun and Viral Meningitis Awareness Weeks, for the duration of her school years, I will most definitely be able to build a paper fort made out of very colourful but just OK artwork around my house.

I used to be a sentimental with memorabilia sort of person, and until my last house move have kept Rosh Hashana cards from primary school friends and birthday cards from people I now couldn’t confidently put a face to. Three shoeboxes full of physical correspondence with friends back in Israel, dating back to 1998 have survived all but my most recent house move. Before I gave up and hired professional packers to do what I couldn’t be asked, I had gone through the sealed boxes that kept coming with me. The yellowing, dry Sellotape said it all. If these have not been opened, let alone re-read for 20 years- what is point? Recycle the past and move on- with fewer boxes.

Since then, I have been keeping a small, curated archive of baby clothes, achievement certificates and artistic endeavours good enough to be displayed on prime fridge real estate- my favourite of which is a rainbow drawn during The Great Quarantine and looks far more like female genitalia than a rainbow.

The criteria for objects to be kept in my attic and never looked at again is strict and without rhyme or reason. It largely depends on my mood that day and the estimation of labour required to open and climb the death-trap attic ladder versus opening the recycling bin.

Before I became a soulless recycler, I kept these sorts of things to hold or rejig memories. But three decades in, I realise many memories are memorable without a physical timestamp. I’m unlikely to forget I had a birthday every year and some people wished me a happy one. And if cards are not for keeping, then why do we even bother? A call, text or Facebook wall can have the same sentiment but unlike a card, will not end up in the bin the following day.

For all the photos people say they would save from a house fire, how many physical photo albums actually make it out in disastrous events? With war footage dominating current news, I can’t imagine many of those fleeing to safety are weighed down by non-essentials. Things to keep warm, valuable things that can be sold and in return provide shelter and nutrition; things that remind you of home, are lightweight and probably not kept in forgotten boxes in the attic.

I’m not saying things are bad- I love things. I spend lots of money on things and have probably kept too many ugly things in case they come back in style or prove to be ‘handy’ one day. None have thus far. And I expect it will take another house move to realise a wine cooler bag will never be useful to me because I do not camp, and that T-Shirt I’ve been sleeping in since 2009 and has as many holes may just need to RIP in a recycling plant.

Maybe I’m just overthinking it all because my kid’s bottom lip quivered for a split second and I need to tell myself I’m not a bad person and this will definitely not come up with her therapist in later years.