Souveniers

You wouldn't think clutter could accumulate on your vacation, but it can. As hard as I've worked not to accumulate "stuff", my parents have worked to accumulate keepsakes of my life. Now they're getting older and want to clean out their own closets, so while I'm visiting they keep pulling out boxes to show me.

Today's dilemma is what to do about my girl scout sash - you know, the one plastered with all the badges that I earned? I haven't thought about it for at least twenty-odd years, but here it is, right next to me as I type. What do I do now?

I should just throw it out - I haven't missed it, but instead I keep running my hand over those little circles - the camping badge, the sewing badge, the music badge, hiking badge....all that work. All those memories.

At the very least I'll cut it in half and get rid of the backing, even though the badges have spilled off of the front and onto the back for lack of room. But what then? Will I stick it in a box in the closet? Will I sew it onto some kind of memory quilt? Will I save it for my heirs to face one day - "Oh, it's mom's girl scout sash. What on earth are we supposed to do with this?"

Maybe I'll just save one or two badges. Maybe I'll throw it all away when no one's looking. I'm still in the decision phase. What would you do?

Edit: I asked this question in another venue and got some great answers. The suggestions were:

1. take a picture of it! Simple, eh?

2. put the most important badges in a frame or shadow-box.

3. Just keep one box of keepsakes - limit them to the size of the box so that's all my children will have to deal with in time. Also, that gave me the idea of writing a note about the contents of the box - why they were important to me. If I kept the box and note small, it might be a keepsake worth saving for future generations.