pack rat

I prefer to be called a collector. It sounds much better than pack rat, although one could label me that as well. I'm a collector of memories.
I don't have a problem with getting rid of stuff, I have a problem with keeping too much. I enjoy strolling down memory lane to recollect the good times I had with family and friends. Maybe I fear if I throw these things away, my memories associated with them will be lost.
Whatever the reason, I hang onto the most absurd things.
I still have three shoe boxes of old notes written between friends from middle school gossiping about boys.
After our high school football team lost the championship game senior year, my friends and I ate at an Olive Garden. I kept the coaster from the table.
Tucked away in my scrapbook are napkins from proms, every college class schedule, my lunch card from high school and the 176 page program from my college graduation.
I even have a wet nap given to me by a friend who told me to keep it forever to remind me of him. I'm sure he said it in jest, but the wet cloth that dried out years ago is still wedged between the pages of my scrapbook.
Why on earth would I keep something like that? That one even has me questioning.
Occasionally I shuffle through them, reminiscing about the time I died my hair brazen berry red #203 in the community bathroom of our dorm floor.
And for a few seconds, it's 2 a.m. again and I'm laughing hysterically with two of my best friends trying to clean up spilled hair dye.
There are a lot of collectors out there - toy collectors, stamp collectors, spoon collectors. One of my very best friends collected pigs of all things. She had pigs in every color, shape and size.
The difference between a collector and a collector of memories is time. The problem lies in realizing nearly every day I add to my collection of keepsakes. Before long I'll be drowning in memories.
Any other person could simply call their collection complete. Mine however, won't be complete until the day I die. And hopefully not for quite some time. Hmm.. in that length of time I could fill a whole house with my memory collection.
That's the best part. It's mine.
No one in the world has the same pieces I do. No one else knows the story behind the map of San Francisco.
That is why I'm a pack rat. After all, what better thing to collect than your very own life?

To be printed in the DCN Jan. 25