I put my 2024 notice board contents away last week.
It took me that long to pick them up off the floor where I'd neatly tidied them, put them in a bag, and stored them with the rest of the noticeboard content.
I have written about this lots of times. I store my meaningful things on a notice board every year, take them down, put them in a bag or an envelope, and maybe look at them later when I'm in a chair in a nursing home, but maybe not.
There are countless stories of people who do this, collecting memories and putting them away for later.
The most famous one in my life was a friend of mine (sadly now passed away) whose dad was a minister and who spent a lifetime collecting religious pamphlets in the library in his house. When he died, my friend had to remove them from his home and take them to the tip. Nobody wanted his life of religious pamphlets; he couldn't sell them, couldn't give them away, just throw them away.
Currently on the left side of my desk are some pictures from the wall. One of them is a signed 5 pounds note signed by Jack Nichlaus at his last British Open ever with a photograph of him as he walks across the Swilcan Bridge at St Andrews.
It was a present from a friend of mine, a beautiful gift, valuable (don't know how much but it's valuable). It's not on the wall.
Another one is a picture from another friend.
Another one from a patient.
Several other ones just sitting beside my desk haven't had the heart to take them up and put them somewhere or put them in a cupboard.
I don't know where to put them or where they should go.
I surround myself with things of significance and meaning, but then I have more and more things of significance and meaning and fewer and fewer places to put them.
I like to be reminded of why I've got them and where they came from, but in the end, It's not really about the things, is it? It's not really about things from the notice board and the envelope under the cabinet, not really from the pictures on the left of my desk that I can't put up.
It's about the fact that I did, I was, I experienced, I had, and now I'm on to something else.
Sometimes, the problem with collecting these things is you're always looking over your shoulder; all I want to do with these things is to remind me that there are many more things to collect even if I don't put them anywhere.
Blog Post Number - 4106
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