In each of the least reachable corners of my house, I have boxes, each of them full of things I never need, use, want, or have much desire to look at: photos, tapes, unmarked CD-Rs, unreadable Zip discs, DAT cassettes, memo pads, term papers, medical forms and copies of medical forms. The boxes themselves are caving in after years of getting jammed into different corners. Just the idea of going through them makes me sneeze, as though nostalgia was just an allergy I live with. 

I’d say something column-y like “Am I holding onto this stuff or is it holding onto me?” if it weren’t actually just a standard-issue hoarding habit proudly and literally handed down through generations of my family. (The last time I went home I was reunited with a board game that I made in first grade and a folder of report cards from junior high.) The boxes could seriously be filled with smaller boxes — and some are — and it wouldn’t matter. I don’t need what’s inside of them. (But what if I do?!)