Whatever to do With a Closet Full of Life

I have an entire closet worth of photographs that chronicle our life; my children’s lives, our dogs’ lives, and all those treasured people we’ve loved over the years. Every time I open this closet door, I’m overwhelmed. I look at how much room the countless photo albums occupy on the shelves stacked to the ceiling and then, without further thought, I shut the door. I mean, what do you do with all these photos? The contents of this closet chronicle my whole life. There are yellowed aged photos of my dad standing next to the iconic wood-paneled station wagon. Or, what about the photo of my bare-chested brothers playing basketball on a hot summer day? Such images trigger a plethora of memories that make me smile.

And then there are the scrap books. I wanted to celebrate my kids’ growing up, so I collected stickers, appliques, and handwritten notes to mark a gazillion memories made tangible by way of several scrap books. They were fun at the time, but now, they feel a bit antiquated. My kids are now full throttle into collecting memories for their own families. And truth be told, I get it that the scrapbook dedicated to my son’s membership in his high school Chess club has lost its juju. That other scrapbook adorned with mementos of my daughter’s kindergarten experience now feels a bit trite. After all, she went on to have quite a few more accomplishments beyond the page dedicated to her first checked book from the school library.

I know this closet eventually needs to be addressed, but I can’t really throw all my photos away. The thought of boxing them up and sending them to one of those digital file companies feels much too laborious to me. It would take boxes and boxes to do just that.

I heard an advertisement on the radio for an app you can use to scan photos to your phone, and then the photos are collected to your own personal digital photo file that can be saved to the “Cloud.” I mean, I’m very familiar with the act of saving to my computer. But thinking about this “Cloud” piqued another layer of curiosity.

These “Clouds” are amazing. Every time you purchase a new iPhone or computer, all you have to do is enter your password and, viola! All your information is transferred from that same “Cloud” to your new high-tech apparatus.

I wonder, where exactly are these “Clouds?” Is there some invisible filing cabinet somewhere in Kansas that will keep that cute photo of my small kids huddled together at the end of our driveway all those years ago? Does that mean my collection of pics from our family trip to Yellowstone National Park will be tucked inside a “Cloud” warehouse in Singapore? Or maybe there’s just one ginormous “Cloud” in a satellite somewhere deep in the grooves of space just floating around above the Earth that could hold all those first day of school pics. I guess I must leave those questions for those smarter than me.

Truth be told, what I really need is someone to descend from wherever that “Cloud” is and help me sift and discern whether I really need to save every photo of every birthday dinner for the past 40 years. As you can probably tell, not only does my closet have issues, but so do I. For now, I think I’ll just keep the door closed.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash