At What Point Do You Bite The Bullet And Throw Away Childhood Treasures?
I’ve been meaning to blog this for a while now. It’s a topic that resonates with a lot of people in our key (Barstool Sports, not #GoPresGo) demographic. I’m 28 years old, turning 29 on October 10. I haven’t lived at home outside of a 3 month period after I graduated college. So the better part of 8 years. Additionally, I’ve moved apartments something like 5 or 6 times in the last 8 years. Not optimal! Just recently, I moved again, from downtown Hoboken to….uptown Hoboken. I’m now living the good Uptown life. No riff-raff, no hooligans, no shenanigans. Taking the ferry to and from work every day instead of the the PATH. Shit, yesterday I went to the US Open. I watched tennis! Like a classy man! But despite all that- despite all of my moves, despite my new fancy way of life, I still have one bug-a-boo: I can’t figure out what to do with gems from my childhood.
This is a tweet I fired out last year as I was packing up my stuff to move:
I was just going through my stuff, trying to consolidate and down-size the amount of things I owned. But sometimes it’s easier said than done. What do you actually do with things that you love, but don’t use. This includes clothes- like an old t-shirt or jersey that you have fond memories of, but would never wear again? And DVDs.
Actually, let me say something about DVDs real quick: they were phased out WAY too early. Owning a physical copy of a DVD and then popping it into your DVD player or laptop is still the best and most practical way to watch a movie you love. Not everything is on Netflix, and you don’t want to have to On Demand things constantly. Plus, it was pretty cool to have a DVD collection, maybe a binder to hold them in for road trips. So much practical sense. But now the DVD/Blu Ray is pretty much dead. It sucks.
But as I was saying until my DVD rant, what do you actually do with things that you love, but don’t really use?
With the invention of Spofity, I have no reason to keep my hard copy of Enema Of The State…but I’m supposed to willy nilly toss it into the trash? For sure not. So I put it into a box and what do you know….
I ran into the same issue again, one year later. DVDs of LOST. Enema of the State. One of my CD binder things from middle school/high school,
full of the best CDs known to man.
Some of the highlights included:
Take Off Your Pants And Jacket, an all time classic.
A burned copy of Jet’s CD. Still bangs.
Limp Bizkit. We all had those angsty years (and some still do).
And what CD collection would be complete without Alien Ant Farm, a band best known for singing a Michael Jackson song a little bit worse?
You just can’t throw away pieces of your childhood like that. I once did a blog asking what people’s worst jersey purchase of all time was. Imagine if these folks threw away their jerseys?
Relics of the past. Ok, fine, maybe it’s ok to toss the JaMarcus jersey. But still, the fact remains, it’s tough to do. You love that thing. It loves you back.
I’m working on it. I tossed some of my DVDs during this last move. I don’t want to talk about which ones, but having no way to watch DVDs played a large role in getting rid of them. Which sort of makes it silly that I kept some as well, but if you think my copy of “Miracle” can hit the trash bin, literally ever until the day I die, you’re insane.
It’s no easy task. But little by little, I will be rid of most everything that I pack up in boxes and don’t see again until the next time it’s time to pack up in boxes. So….this time next year, when I undoubtably move again. But you have my word, I will never throw away my POGs. POG Gang for life.
Woops, didn’t mean to scare ya.