I’ve been thinking a lot about letting go. The older I get, I think a lot of how we shackle ourselves to the past.

I grew up with my dad and mom taking lots of photos. You know, back in the 1960s taking photos and slides was expensive. And so photos were cherished things. They would make photo albums. My dad also took 8mm movies.

As a result, by the time that I was a teenager, I had a really good sense of where I had been. Every three months or so my dad would break out the portable silver screen and we’d watch some of the 8mm movies that he had spliced together of our trips to Tahoe or Yosemite or Monterey.

It was a really nice thing to relive those memories, and I was always grateful to my dad for his films. So when I started on my own, I had this notion that, you know, I want to be like my dad and record everything and take lots of photos and all that.

So when I was on my own, this would be in the mid-1980s, I got a Betamax camcorder. And of course, there’s a big difference between camcorders and 8mm. With an 8mm film you spent 10 or 12 dollars for three minutes of film, so it forced you to be frugal with what you shot. My dad was good at that. He had an innate feel for what was important.

With camcorders on the other hand, you had video cassettes that could store hours and hours for very little cost. And that’s exactly what I ended up doing. I would take hours and hours of video, all through the 1980s and 1990s. Somewhere I have a box full of videos, probably 50 or 60 hours worth.

Other than just a few fishing videos that I edited down to 10 minute vignettes, I haven’t watched any of it.

And all those photos that I took in the ’80s and ’90s, they’re also in boxes. Some ended up in a few photos albums but really haven’t taken a look at those either.

Something changed in me in the early 2000s. I think part of it is because of my multipotentiality. I always was looking to the next thing. What’s the next thing that excites me? What’s the next thing I could get interested in? And that turns out really isn’t about looking at the past.

As I’ve gotten older, I’m less interested in looking backward and more interested in being present and looking forward. It’s not that I don’t revere many of my past experiences, it’s just that I’m in a place now where I don’t want to forfeit the present by getting stuck reliving the past.

Have you experienced this as well as you’ve gotten older?

The problem with the past is that for me it gets in the way, both mentally and physically. When I look at my garage, it’s all the stuff that’s been stored there, accumulating and accumulating. It gets in the way of me working on new stuff. I’m in my 60s now, and I’m finding less and less energy for moving it around.

There was an article recently by Business Insider (paywall) called the Boomer Stuff Avalanche. CBS news has a video about it. Millenials are about to get hit with an avalanche of stuff that no one wants or needs.

I’m am deeply aware of this. In our foyer, we have whole rack of CDs and we have a whole rack of DVDs. I haven’t pulled and listened to any of those CDs in probably 15 years. There’s a couple of DVDs that I pull out once in a while but the vast majority of them, who needs them, right? Everything’s now available with streaming. Same with the music. The stuff just sits there, gathering dust.

It’s an avalanche of stuff that nobody wants anymore. We have boxes and boxes of LPs in the garage. I know there’s a sort of a renaissance of LPs right now. But the truth is nobody wants the vast majority of those LPs. Literal pounds and pounds of material, sitting in our foyer and sitting in the garage.

I’m really at a point where I want to get rid of this stuff. I don’t want to saddle my kid with having to deal with this. Cuz I know what’s going to happen, right? My kid’s just going to open up the recycling bin and just dump it all in there, because nobody wants it.

Once in a while, I’ll find a box of photos that I took in the 1990s and I look and I say to myself, I don’t even remember that. There are so many experiences lost in my memory because while each experience was great at the time it happened, I didn’t really make room for it. Unless it was a really peak experience.

I know everyone’s different about this. And I don’t wish to diminish anyone who has great memories and makes great photo albums. I’m just understanding how my mind is changing concerning the past. I’m understanding that I really enjoy being present to current experiences, much more so than ruminating about the past.

To be clear, I’m not talking necessarily about history. I love history, especially local history and railroad history. This is more about personal history.

As I look at the boxes of unwatched videos and unvisited photo albums, I realize they represent not just the weight of the past but also the space I can reclaim for the present and the future.

Letting go isn’t about forgetting. It’s about honoring what mattered then by making room for what matters now. I’ve come to see that the real treasures aren’t in those dusty boxes but in the experiences I choose to live fully today. That’s what I want to pass down to my kid. Not an avalanche of stuff, but a love for being truly present.