Let’s jump right into the question this week, huh? Drop into the comments and answer this one:
Name something you wish you had never thrown away.
When I was in high school, my best friend and I used to write these crazy, goofy stories for each other. For her birthday, I was working on this epic novel for her. I think I had something like two hundred pages handwritten. This was what I did in my free time, for fun. (And I didn’t realize God had destined me to be a writer? Duh…) At any rate, we got into a huge fight–as high school girls do–one of those fights where you walk away and never speak again. (Side note? As a teacher, I’d rather have two boys fight than two girls. Boys throw a few punches and are buddies again by detention. Girls can make a wreck of the rest of the school year for everyone around them. We’re mean like that… 🙂 )
At any rate, after a few months of not speaking, I decided to cut the final tie between us… I pulled out my dad’s grill and played pyro. It took a while, but all two-hundred-plus pages finally burned to ash. To this day, I wish I hadn’t done that. There was a lot of work in that smoke, and it was a lot of fun to write. It would be cool to still have it, even if it was just to compare my writing over a span of twenty years. Ah well… What’s up in smoke is up in smoke, right?
Now, how about you?
-JB
Jessica R. Patch says
You grilled your novel? Rofl!! I wish I’d never thrown out my diaries from jr high!
Jodie says
Oh, I threw mine away GLADLY!!!
Carol J. Garvin says
I’m a terrible hoarder. My basement is full of boxes but when I hunt for something I often can’t find it, so keeping it wasn’t a great advantage.
The one thing I did dispose of and have always regretted throwing away was an envelope of oriental poppy seeds. I collected them from plants along the edge of a path at a favourite island holiday locale. I wanted to re-create the ambience of that place and I pictured masses of gorgeous red blooms brightening our back garden. I sprinkled a few in the soil but they didn’t germinate. I kept the remainder in an envelope for many years but threw it out when we moved. Now that we have a lot with the right growing conditions, I don’t have them to try again. I could buy a few plants, or more seeds, of course, but they wouldn’t generate the same memories — my heart would tell me they weren’t from our special holiday place. Silly, I know.
Jodie says
Oh, Carol… I totally understand that. The memories are what make anything important…