Memory Keeper

I would not call myself a hoarder, necessarily. I am a memory keeper. I remember everything and most of the time I like it that way. This leads me to be an extremely sentimental person*. When I was little, my dad showed me his memory box and gave me the idea to start my own. My little box has now grown into a trunk and is filling up quickly. So, I decided to share just a glimpse of the things that I save!

Here is my trunk, where I keep all my memories ;)

Top Row: Music box from a Carnegie Hall ballerina, movie stubs
Bottom Row: Red hair ties (which I have been wearing as bracelets every second of every day since I was 15. long story), a picture of my Poppy, and an ice skating bracelet me and my best friends had when we were younger.

Top Row: my super sweet autograph book from Disney, newspaper clipping from my first time in the newspaper, one of my Lambchop slippers (which I basically lived in)
Bottom Row: My tooth pillow where I put my tooth for the fairy to come get, my Raja figurine, and my spy notebook that I brought literally everywhere with me

Top Row: My first pointe shoes, my first platinum ribbon from a dance competition, a tag from a Christmas present that says "To: my sister. From: Iza", and the first e-mail I got from Iza
Bottom Row: My Cheer-Off plaque from my cheer days

Top Row: my freshman and senior highschool ID's, my voting sticker from my first time voting, my highschool orientation map, my letter, pin, and bib from cross-country
Bottom Row: my highschool parking pass, junior prom ticket, my highschool graduation program, the ribbon that came on the box of my first cellphone

Various letters from my parents. Note that they never address me by anything other than a nickname. These nicknames include, but are not limited to: Trout, Ms. Trout, Brooke Trout Toffolon, Chicken, Chicken Little, and Rockstar

Various letters from...
Top Row: Dad, Mom, Grandma, Great Grandma
Bottom Row: Grandma, Mom
If you are super interested in why these particular letters mean so much to me, you can probably read them if you enlarge the picture

Top Row: scavenger hunt note from Linds, door dec from freshman year, tattoo card from my first (and currently only) tattoo, Duke ID badge
Bottom Row: Lilly's birth certificate, a rude post-it note from Amanda, my first over 21 bracelet, a newspaper clipping from the Carolina gas leak, my car pass from SBP'08, my WalMart badge from SBP'08, my cap and gown receipt, and my string bracelet from our HUS senior internship class

and last but certainly not least:
the first is a letter from my mom. The parents had to write letters to their kids at freshman orientation. The catch was that we weren't allowed to read these letters until now, as seniors.
the second is a note from family friends. It talks about having fun and embarking on the college journey. It honestly seems like just yesterday that I got this note and now college is almost over and I am ready to embark on a complete different journey.

So, sorry that was slightly lengthy, but I felt like it would be fun to share those few things with you guys. Do you have a memory box? What kinds of things do you save?


*being such a sentimental person is not always a good thing. I have to try really hard to not live in the past or miss things too much.