Stuff!!

My poor little sandals :(

Today I came to the realization that I desperately needed to buy new Rainbows (those are a brand of flip flops, if you're unfamiliar with them). My friend, Erin, bought me my first pair for my 17th birthday (4.5 years ago, for those of you keeping track) and I've taken them with me everywhere! They've been to Panama, Guatemala, Belize, Gleanings, San Francisco.....you get the point. I have a lot of memories with those shoes. The reason I didn't buy new ones sooner is, well, they're really expensive (for flip flops) and they mold exactly to your foot and I really didn't want to go through the breaking-in process again if I didn't have to. The only reason I decided today was the day was because I looked at them while I was enjoying the sun in the park and saw that there was at least one layer worn through on the tops and bottoms of both shoes and the top layer of leather isn't really attached to the rest of the shoe anymore on either of them. So...I'm pretty sure they own't make it through another summer.
 But all this got me to thinking: why do I feel so sad to let my old ones go? I mean, it's just a pair of sandals!!! And then I got to

My shiny new ones! :)

thinking about some of my other stuff that I've had for a long time that lots of people replace without a second thought. My water bottle: I bought it the day before my friend Abbie got married, it's also been to Panama, Guatemala, Gleanings, etc., it has stickers on it from places//things I love, there's a little gash on it from falling off the back of my forklift so many times the summer I staffed at Gleanings. There are so many good memories attached to that bottle. When I was in Belize, my sunglasses broke and I threw them away planning to just buy a new pair later that day, or sometime the next day, and once I threw them away I realized how much fun stuff I'd done with them, how I was wearing them in almost all of our Guatemalan/Belizian adventure photos, and how they'd never be in another photo ever again.
I think we get so attached to stuff because those things hold memories for us. I think that we think that if we throw something away, we throw the good memories away too. There's a picture at the house we were at in Panama where Erin's and my rainbows are right next to each other by the back door and you can't really tell them apart. Erin's new sister-in-law ended up taking her rainbows on her honeymoon because she just threw them on (they were right by the door, after all) to go out back for a family photo and forgot to take them off when they went off one their honeymoon. Erin wondered why she couldn't have accidentally taken mine. (True friendship right there!) When I get rid of my old rainbows, I'll no longer have the ones that went everywhere with me, but I'll still have a zillion cool stories from times spent with those shoes. Sentimentality is a weird thing to me. I'm pretty sentimental about stuff (random stuff!!!!!) until one day I get into a purging mood and I throw away/send to Goodwill everything I don't really need. And it's always a process that gets easier the further into it I go: the first hour doesn't usually produce much give away stuff, but upon realizing just how much stuff I'm piling up in my life it gets easier and easier to get rid of stuff. But back to sentimentality! Isn't it odd how people place so much value on stuff? And not even because it's monetarily worth a lot! Like an old, tattered baby blanket, or the box from some valentine's chocolates. All of that stuff becomes worth something in our hearts and then it makes it really hard to let go of it when it's worn out. Well that's how I feel right now about my rainbows. I can't imagine just throwing them away in the trash....but what else can I do with them? It's not like I'm going to put them in my hope chest until I have a place of my own so that I can hang them on the wall. They are the absolute best sandals I've ever worn and I highly recommend getting yourself a pair (if you wear sandals a lot! if you could care less, then go with the 2 for $5 ones from Old Navy). But, alas, into the trash they go. What are some things that you're really sentimental about? Why?