Alright, let me walk you through this thing I’ve been working on. It kinda started accidentally, you know?
I was clearing out some space in the garage a while back, trying to make room. Found this stack of old boxes I hadn’t touched in years. One of them was just labeled ‘Bayley – Misc’. Curiosity got the better of me, so I dragged it inside and cracked it open.
Digging In
Man, what a trip. It was packed full of old stuff. We’re talking:
- Stacks of photos, like, real paper photos, some already fading.
- Old school reports and drawings from when I was a kid.
- Letters, postcards from trips.
- Ticket stubs, weird little souvenirs, things I’d totally forgotten about.
Looking at all that mess spread out on the floor, I just thought, wow, this is your life, Bayley, or at least chunks of it, right here. Decided then and there I needed to actually sort through it properly, not just stuff it back in the box.
The Sorting Process
So, I dedicated a weekend to it. First step was just making piles. Photos in one corner, documents in another, sentimental junk in a third. It took way longer than I expected. Some photos brought back memories instantly, others had me scratching my head wondering where or when they were taken.
Then I got serious. I went out and bought a decent photo scanner. Started scanning the important photos, the ones that looked like they wouldn’t last much longer. Saved them onto my computer, tried to organize them into folders by year, or at least by decade for the really old ones. It was slow work, feeding them one by one.
While the scanner was humming, I read through old letters. Some were funny, some were kinda sad, some were just updates from people I haven’t heard from in ages. Found an old journal too. That was… interesting. Cringey in parts, but definitely part of the story.
Putting It Together (Sort Of)
I didn’t go crazy trying to make some perfect scrapbook or anything. My main goal was just to preserve the photos digitally and get a better handle on what I actually had. I typed up a few notes for some of the digital photos, just quick reminders of what was going on, who was there.
The physical stuff? I got some better storage boxes, acid-free ones for the photos and important papers. Ditched some of the outright junk but kept the meaningful trinkets. It’s still a box of ‘stuff’, but now it’s an organized box of stuff.
It’s not like it’s ‘done’. I find new things sometimes, or remember a story sparked by an old photo. I add bits and pieces to the digital folders now and then. But going through that whole process, touching all those old memories, sorting them out… it felt good. Felt like connecting the dots a bit. It’s just my stuff, my history, laid out a bit clearer than it was before.
