One Girl's Trash Could Later Be Her Treasure

So, yesterday I cleaned my room. Well, "clean" is an overstatement. "Reorganized" is a better term for What I've Done.*

I have this drawer full of random junk that most people would have thrown out. I tend to keep the small stuff, and I'd set aside a drawer for it, but as I was cleaning yesterday, I found a new place to stick them all. This is a quick list of the more unusual stuff I found:

• 3 empty packets of Trident Layers gum (strawberry/citrus flavor).
• 2 hairbands, one purple and one black, that are as worn down as they can get without breaking.
• 3 plastic Barnes and Noble bags, the ones they hand you your books in. Nothing inside**
• 1 hem from a pair of old blue jeans: cut off when they'd dragged on the ground.
• 2 silky-type scraps of painted cloth: 1 lovely dark purple, 1 lightish blue with purple patches.
• 1 plastic, fake Roman coin. 2 dice, 1 blue and 1 white. 1 (funny-looking) red duct-tape flower.

The sort of junk you keep without anyone asking you to keep it is amazing, when you think of it. I have movie ticket stubs, every school binder I've used since freshman year (I'm a junior now)***, one of those plastic rings they sometimes put on cupcakes, as well as a metal tiger-head ring. I've even kept water bottles, soda cans, marbles, beads, and those paper wristbands they give you at concerts (Acquire the Fire, for me).

Trident Layers, a metal tiger-head ring, and my pitiful duct-tape flower.

How does this relate to writing? I think the point I'm trying to make is that even when you think it's junk, you should collect it. Past me didn't find this stuff practical in any way: I just kept it on a whim. But now, this random junk I've collected is priceless: they represent a memory of something, anything.

Every day is precious. Keeping the little things can help you remember them.

I think I'll label this is as inspiration. Delving through memories of happier or sadder times, turning over old objects and thinking of their past. I think it'd be kind of interesting to see what your characters keep as well. Do they collect old water bottles or movie ticket stubs or plastic bags?

Now, just as advice, I don't recommend you become a true hoarder. You'll have to throw away some things or get buried alive in your own trash. But keeping mementos, memories, little things can really delve deep to that soul you've buried under mounds of chocolate-bar wrappers.

What do you think? Keep the junk or hoard it? Have a blessed day!


*There's a song from Linkin Park called "What I've Done". I love that song. It has nothing to do with this post, just thought I'd mention.
**Well, technically, one of them had stuff inside. A Godiva chocolate bar wrapper and the cover of The Host by Stephanie Meyer. Sad, I know. I don't even like that book, nor did I buy that book from B&N - I bought it from Walmart.
***I used to have binders from middle school too, but I had to throw them away. My room is too tiny to keep them all.