Sorting through all the paper that Adrian has produced during this school year. Archiving some for nostalgia; throwing out the rest.

Perhaps I’m more nostalgic and inclined to storing memories than most people. I like having the ability to go back and re-visit old memories, and not just in my head but with the support of pictures, words, and objects. I’ve saved a few baby clothes for both Ingrid and Adrian, and my favourite baby-wearing wraps, and material from my own years at high school and university.

I wish I had more from my own childhood. I’d have loved to show my school uniforms to the kids, because that’s just so different from how things work these days. Or my handwriting exercises, again because things are so different now. Fountain pens (not pencils), with a jar of ink on the desk, and exercise books with lines after lines of uniform, tidy copies of the letter “m”.

Twenty years from now, the idea of even having paper in school could be a quaint memory, so these might be fun to look at. Maybe Ingrid and Adrian won’t care when they’re all grown and have their own children. But maybe they will.

Bonus cat, because of course every flat surface is a cat bed.