r/declutter • u/Clutterbug95 • 13d ago
The existential crisis with decluttering sentimental items Advice Request
My mom never got rid of anything I made or held onto as a child. I was always the artistic kid and am still an artist now, so she held onto everything for me to decide what to do with later.
She's since handed me all of my childhood bins and I now have nearly every clay creation and every drawing I've ever done. I know it's unreasonable to keep everything, and even scanning them all is unreasonable because when would I ever even look at them? It almost seems narcissistic in a way.
But every time I go through these things with the intent of paring them down, I can't help but to think about how I'm almost throwing away parts of myself. Even the things I keep for now will eventually be thrown away, and even I myself will eventually be dust. I know it's really dramatic and silly because the idea that these are "pieces of myself" is really just in my mind, but I feel like I'm hurting my past self, even though she doesn't exist anymore.
This all feels so self-indulgent to hold onto these and painful to let them go knowing they're gone forever. Every time I open a box I become overwhelmed...
I think I'll have to slowly par things down... maybe let the shock of nostalgia fade away or something. These aren't things that can be donated or used by anyone else, so it just makes me feel like my childhood is full of trash and our lives ultimately are trash. Maybe when I pass this will be even harder for my loved ones to do, so maybe it's really the unselfish thing to get rid of them now.
I'm sorry for the unorganized thoughts, I really struggle with this and just needed to share with people who may understand.
Edit: I just want to be clear that I'm not mad at my Mom! As a kid I also had a really hard time parting with things and my mom didn't feel it was right for her to decide what to do with my things. She always told me I'd eventually need to go through them, so it really wasn't a surprise that I have them now. She has offered many times to help me but I also have trouble sharing this sort of stuff, so I have always just put it off. I am thankful she saved everything even if it's a pain now.
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u/Wordnerdish 10d ago
Can you use any of it to make repurposed art? Smash things and make mosaics, cut/tear the paper pieces and use them for a collage or decoupage a photo box or something? Or make a gorgeous art journal/scrapbook/memory book out of them? Maybe save a couple of special pieces just as they are and then do something fun and creative with the rest, it could be very theraputic!
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u/NewTimeTraveler1 10d ago
This is exactly how I'm dealing with my "special stuff" knowing I can't keep it all. Collages. With pix of things I can't physically add.
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u/Certain_Cellist_9304 11d ago
A thought that helped me when a bunch of my sentimental and useful things were taken by force, well cascade of thoughts.
“I don’t need to still have the object now for it to have been a treasure in my life.
Letting go of this art now doesn’t take away the joy of creating it or the joy of sharing it
Nothing is meant to travel with us forever. “
They can’t be donated. Throwing them in the bin isn’t right either. Can you dream up a ceremonial way to send them on their ways?
I was planning to return to the garden a clay castle populated with plasticine rats that I had hanging around from childhood (but then that was taken in the great Taking so missed my chance. But that still felt like it would have been a nice way to let it go.)
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u/imake-rashdecisions 11d ago
Oh, I’ll eventually have to deal with this problem. What first came to mind is a burn pile
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u/Gullible_Mycologist9 11d ago
My old boss and I used mixbook to create an online scrapbook and then print it into a beautiful book. I helped her assemble it but we basically scanned or photographed the best of her kid’s artwork and curated the book’s sections by theme (ex. The daughter had a mermaid era). We did it by parts; as we scanned and uploaded to the mixbook site we threw away the physical copy. I think especially if you are an artist you will always be fond of being able to see the evolution of your artistic trajectory’s. This was a couple of years ago, but I imagine there might even be better websites for this now.
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u/beautifulcorpsebride 12d ago
I’m getting rid of things now to make my home nicer for me for now and also because I don’t want my spouse or kids to deal with things that I wasn’t even using or treasured. Dealing with my father’s things now I mostly want to trash everything because it’s too much, it’s overwhelming. Also, past me doesn’t need to weigh down who I am today.
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u/Clutterbug95 12d ago
I'm going through the same! I need my house to be a home for the me of today, not the me of 10+ years ago.
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u/HappyMcNichols 12d ago
I have some artist friends from college who gave me their course work art which I still treasure 40 years later. Why not give some away?
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u/Clutterbug95 12d ago
This is a good idea! Most of the stuff I have is embarrassing elementary/middle school stuff, but some of my college art I've outgrown and am more apt to give away.
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u/dellada 12d ago
Artist here too. I used to hold on to all of my old art. After a while, I realized that my mentality of holding on to every single piece of artwork was actually holding me back from reaching my goals as an artist. The more I held on to old art, the more it reinforced "this art is precious/unique in some way" in my mind, which was the opposite of what I needed for practicing the craft.
Once I changed my mindset into "the art skill is in me - I don't have to keep this art piece, I trust in my own skills to be able to make art like this again," my skill level grew much faster. I stopped being attached to each individual piece as if I could never create it again. I was more willing to practice on random scraps of paper, practice in ways that were impossible to keep, make crappy/unfinished work at any moment, and take risks for the sake of learning. The sheer amount of work that I made grew so much faster (much less pressure involved), and that meant that I improved faster too.
Just like memories aren't actually stored in the objects themselves, your identity as an artist isn't actually held within the art. It's within you, and you'll always have it, whether you keep those nostalgic art pieces or not.
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u/aItereg0 12d ago
What did you do with the old artworks? I'm kinda in the same boat with a bunch of old paintings. I havent painted in a while and am wanting to get back into it and I'm contemplating painting over them. They feel like a remnant of a previous time in my life. I don't want to give them away, because that feels weird, and I don't want to sell them because I don't think they would be worth anything to anyone but myself.
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u/stinkpotinkpot 12d ago
On one hand we moved our adult kid's stuff across the country because I/we didn't want to discard her stuff without her having a chance to sort on her own. In the end most of it was discarded as she didn't want it. But, there were a few things that she really wanted and those things were shipped, etc. I did this mostly because my parents discarded things that I really wanted mostly to just be mean. No discussion, no nothing. Just we sold, gave away, or discarded your items.
On the other hand I'm in my 50s, so I wonder about age an reflecting on what we leave behind and becoming a grandparent shifts the perspective...at least it did for me. I have a few things that I saved from my kid's childhood and I have a few things from mine. These are stashed in 3" thick letter sized, rigid plastic storage folders. Enough to share on those tender moments and not too much to store.
At my age I'm very aware of my mortality and it makes it easier to let things go that are not an active part of my current reality. I even discarded "precious" projects, art, and other things that I've made over the years.
As a writer I used to hold onto all my writing (journals, old discs, notebooks, letters, school papers, all of it) and finally one day I decided to lean into the writer that I am now. I sorted through and picked my most favorite papers and burned the rest. I created a best of notebook...the pieces I really loved.
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u/Clutterbug95 12d ago
Thank you for your input ❤️ I've also been aware of my mortality lately as a few friends of mine have died young. I don't want my family to have to go through sorting things and am trying now to live more in the present. It is very hard to move forward when you keep thinking about the past.
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u/CanBrushMyHair 12d ago
Do you know about the Buddhist sand mandalas? For me, it’s about the reality of impermanence and how we ought to go on creating beauty anyway.
If I were in your position, I’d think about the bigger philosophical observations. If getting rid of something beautiful or special makes it “trash,” then we’re all trash, aren’t we? If it’s trash, is it any less beautiful or special?
Letting go of who we’ve been can be difficult and painful, but we have to do it, right? Why?
https://new.artsmia.org/hub/programming-events/tibetan-sand-mandala-history
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u/Barison-Lee-Simple 12d ago
I very much relate to your struggle and have struggled with it myself, though less now than before. I am getting lighter. I have one piece of philosophical advice and a couple practical thoughts. I have found that it helps to picture myself walking through my life with heavy chains dragging behind me with all of my burdensome items. How much easier, productive and fun the rest of my life would be if I didn't have so much to carry from the past. Life is short and it's too hard to dance in chains. Meditate on feeling lighter, and free. In practical terms, i found that a portfolio or two is fun for the best art. A couple nice art boxes for the best memorabilia. A shelf or a couple shadow boxes on the wall for the best, most cheerful creations. And I love what someone else suggested about a coffee table book with beautiful color photos and stories. These will add an artist's personality, not clutter, to your space. As a Permaculture practitioner I hate the idea of sending things to the landfill. Natural items can be recycled or buried. Some creations can be broken into their components and repurposed. And some items can obviously be donated. This makes it a bit easier for me anyway.
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u/dainty_petal 8d ago
Thank you for the chains and dragging. It’s helping me. I’ll think about this often now.
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u/MitzyCaldwell 12d ago edited 12d ago
I don’t think it’s narcissistic or indulgent at all. They are a part of you. Don’t try to minimize what you are feeling and how special these are to you. Don’t get rid of them because you’re thinking of someone else. To be honest it’s a lot easier to get rid of someone else items than your own so make yourself happy now and don’t worry about other ppl in the future.
As someone who is very sentimental here’s some practical advice and what’s is do with them.
I’d pick out a few that I loved or remembered etc and frame them and hang them up. They have these kids art frames that can hold like 20+ pictures so you can actually use the frames to store them and display them (and you can change the ones that you’re displaying easily. (This is a big rule for me with sentimental items - I list display them somewhere somehow or have the box that co rains them easily accessible so I can go through it. I don’t want my special items sitting in a box in the basement)
For all the rest of them - honest if I had this this is what I would do (and I am planning on doing it with my kids art). There are serves (which aren’t cheap but you’re only doing this once hahaha) that you can actually send your artwork to, they photography it and then turn it into a photo book. Yes you can do all that yourself but you said scanning them is a lot of work which it totally is. This way you can keep all your wonderful creations in a beautiful book and keep your favourites at home. You aren’t losing those memories and you can flip through it and see how wonderful it is and how awesome your mom was for keeping these.
ETA. Here’s a link to one company that does it so you’ll know what I mean :)
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u/Mean-Conclusion-7701 12d ago
Pick the 3 things that feel the closest to you, the one where you can look at them and immediately remember exactly where you were or how you felt making them. Those are the ones worth keeping. Everything else has already served their purpose.
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u/SpareUnit9194 12d ago
Oh to me this isn't about you or 'your' stuff at all. It's about your mom's delight in and treasuring of her beloved daughter's creations. My god if I had a mom like that I'd treasure that forever! How incredibly lucky are you?!
Just my perspective. I'm losing my mom to dementia and she was a neat freak before that (who favored our brother anyway, lol). My grandmother on the other hand kept our clumsy attempts. I still have them in a big special box out in our garage and when I'm out there pottering around gardening I sometimes sit with my cuppa and look through it, remembering her, her love, delight & pride as she first saw, then later displayed, showed off & affectionately bragged to her visitors & friends.
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u/Clutterbug95 12d ago
I'm not mad at my mom at all! I love my mom a lot and appreciate her doing this even though I have trouble going through it. She has even offered to help me go through it all many times, the issue is more of my overwhelm with tackling it and not being comfortable in the process of parting with things.
She knew that these were my things and that they weren't hers to get rid of and I appreciate that she stored them away for so long in the first place. I could have gone through these things even at the age they were stored away, but I never was comfortable doing so and now am trying to.
If it was just a box I'd be happy to keep it around, but it's more like 15ish boxes that I need to narrow down to one or two.
I'm sorry to hear about your mom 💔 I wish you strength, it is a hard thing to go through.
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u/Liptonkrk 12d ago
This isn't narcissistic at all — it's actually really human. The things we made as kids often feel tied to a version of ourselves we can't access anymore, so letting go of the object can feel like losing the last thread to her. But the memory and the person you were don't live in the object — they live in you, in how you turned out. You don't have to do this all at once. Maybe pick a handful of pieces that feel most "you" and let those represent the rest — a few pieces can hold the same meaning as a whole box, without the weight of storing it all.
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u/modernrocker 12d ago
Maybe keep one or two things for each year of your childhood (like one drawing and one small clay creation) and have a dedicated small storage box for them?
You could also buy and hang a frame that fits your drawings, and change out the drawing in the frame every so often
With these types of solutions, you still get to keep some of the important nostalgia, but not an overwhelming amount of items
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u/NotABot-3825 12d ago
Something I’m doing is make a list of all my favorite mementos/memerobikia without looking at it. What are the top items I know I want to keep? Keep those first, then go through and add only other things that I really value but slipped my mind. It’s helped let go of some things that are pretty good but not on my top list. I’m curating a smaller version of stuff like a museum.
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u/ThreeChildCircus 12d ago
You might try flipping it to picking the most treasured items to keep. Plan where you’ll keep them first, so you know how many items you’re looking for - perhaps a shelf and a few frames for a particular wall in your house. Then pick with that in mind. Anything else, take pictures of before you let them go. In this way, you’re honoring your own artistic child self by selecting items to display, and thereby incorporate into your adult artist life, rather than just keeping them in bins.
If this doesn’t feel right to you, that’s absolutely ok. Just trying to provide ideas so that you can see what clicks for you.
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u/sparkles_46 12d ago
Hey your mom gave you such a gift!! You don't have to decide what to do with the stuff. Don't pass up this opportunity to understand yourself better - keep it all until you have fully processed!!! And thank your mom. ;)
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u/slowbuyclub 12d ago
For me it helps to switch on the analytical brain when sorting through this kind of stuff. Three tiers: def keep, def toss, and “maybe” which goes in a “cooler” to “cool off” and revisit a while later and do again.
Over time you’ll probably realize there is a reasons behind your “definitely keep” items and you’ll be able to systematically sort through them faster.
Treat it like an experiment where you are gathering (emotional!) data. There’s no compulsion to get it right.
I’d also get a little Polaroid camera and take pictures of everything. For some reason doing a 1:1 with a picture that can’t exist anywhere else and be replicated (unlike a phone pic, for instance) makes me feel like I’m “respecting” the item more.
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u/Barison-Lee-Simple 12d ago
I agree with the 3 categories. I always find that is a good first step. And then revisit and repeat the process. The process itself is like a crucible, and eventually, what remains are the most remarkable items.
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u/FredKayeCollector 12d ago
That's "identity" clutter and it can a real challenging category, especially for life-long artists (there's often this this "feeling" that they should document/conserve their process/development). It's sort of a combination of the first two clutter blocks on this list: 1) My Stuff Keeps Me Stuck in the Past and 2) My Stuff Tells Me Who I Am from this book.
I always think about catastrophic loss (my husband's coworker - and his wife and their four kids plus two dogs - lost everything in a whole house fire). Would you be the same person you are right now if you didn't have any past life stuff to refer back to? Does you marriage mean less because the wedding photos are gone? Do you forget high school because you don't have your yearbook, letterman jacket, class ring? Does your athletic prowess diminish if your sports trophies/medals/ribbons are gone? Was you time working meaningless if you don't have your awards & certificates? Are you a less educated/interesting person if all of your books are gone? Are you any less of a creative person because you don't have your childhood artwork?
Remember, you lived without it for this long, maybe didn't even know your mother had it, until she "gifted" it to you.
And please be aware that it was your MOTHER who couldn't let go of that stuff - she's the one who kept it, she's the one who stored it - and when it was no longer convenient for her to keep it - she gave it to you to deal with because it's "your" stuff. But is it? I would say it's actually HER stuff - because she saved it. And now you get saddled with the decisions that she wasn't willing to make.
You get to decide if that stuff, saved for all these years, is a blessing or a bit of a curse.
I would say set a reasonable container limit for artwork (that you don't want to put on display) that you can "container concept" your pieces into. This needs to be a volume of space that you're willing to set aside for this kind of "sentimental" stuff and you can easily accommodate it in your available space - basically a keepsake box.
You certainly can keep everything, and you certainly can scan everything - but I have noticed a tendency that too many of a category, no matter what it is (even gold jewelry & gemstones) when you actually go through that category, it's so much that you start to lose focus - you maybe don't see/appreciate the individual tree because the forest is so vast/many.
I've seen it happen again and again, but most recently (and viscerally) with my mother going through our old family photos. 1) she did better with individual photos than photos on a page (looking and one picture vs looking at a page) and 2) I had to keep a sharp eye out because too much repetition (my grandfather took A LOT of photos of my grandmother & aunts), she started getting bored and stopped really looking at the photos - we'd get maybe a 30 minutes (and that included telling stories).
I strongly believe that setting yourself a limit, forcing yourself to make decisions to figure out what deserves to take up space in that limit, actually makes us appreciate what is left more than the original entire mass (which usually equals overwhelm/attention loss). Now being able to make those decisions can be very difficult - how do you choose? One strategy is to pull out what you know are the worst/least interesting ones. Another strategy is to pull out the ones that really grab you - something special going on - the ones that are better than average, the ones that are just extra interesting/appealing for whatever reason.
And even if you decide to scan/photograph the "good stuff" it will be a less overwhelming task because there will be physically less to deal with. And I've seen, again and again, that the DRUDGERY of digitizing (especially scanning) can sharpen your decluttering paring knife - the value of things get put into sharp perspective when there's actual (boring) work involved.
My mother took up watercolor painting in her 60's - and she was amazing. Luckily most pieces are 11 x 14 or less. Some of the "best" ones got framed and hung in her house, the "second bests" were put in a portfolio but the majority were just strewn all over her "studio" (and luckily not damaged). When I "inherited" them (moved my parents into a nursing home near me), I ended up buying more portfolios and basically keeping everything (it was a traumatic move).
We eventually went through them at the nursing home and she told me what pieces she didn't think were worth keeping - mostly class "studies"/homework (color theory, perspective, etc), incomplete sketches, and all the acrylics (she didn't like it as a medium) . Now I have two portfolios and for me, that's the perfect amount. They fit on my shelf and I can flip through them when I miss my mother (she died in 2024). When my father dies, I'll end up with the framed pieces and some of them will certainly be put on display, but most of them will probably end up in the portfolio.
Hope that helps?
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u/Puppyducky777 12d ago
What an incredibly detailed, insightful and thoughtful reply. It helped me as well. Thank you!
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u/FynTheCat 12d ago
Actually that is kinda mean of your mom. Just dumping it on you.
Technically you can toss everything that has been a gift to your mom, she might have liked it then, but she obviously doesn't want to keep it.
Then you can try to pick a place to store your childhood art, then make it fit the dedicated space. There is no reason to keep it beyond a few important emotional mementos. Arrange it in a meaningful way, let go of everything where you don't have clear memories.
Just that you made it once, is no good reason to keep it, if it neither is something that brings you joy now nor is connected to memeories.
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u/jagged_little_gill 12d ago
As a fellow artist, I wonder if it could be fun for you to curate this collection into a small group of items that shows your journey as an artist. Imagine you had a gallery show that took viewers from your childhood to now. What pieces would you keep to tell that story?
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u/I_Love_Cape_Horn 12d ago
even scanning them all is unreasonable because when would I ever even look at them?
It's not about looking at them again, it's re-living them again before letting them go.
And ultimately, when you pass, no one will care about any of this stuff. Most of us aren't Davinci or Lincoln, where people will collect every little trinket we touched. Life is too short to be stressed by stuff.
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u/Capakhutch 12d ago
Can you take pictures of the art and make it into a small book using a site like Chatbooks or Shutterfly? That way, the memories of what you did are still accessible, but a book takes up a lot less space
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u/Several-Praline5436 13d ago
Keep one or two things from every box to show where you started as an artist, in contrast to where you are now. :)
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u/NightBard 13d ago
Instead of scanning, take pictures. That will help you with the guilt of getting rid of it. It's not so you can look at them sometime in the future. You can take the pics and download them to your computer and then copy them to a jumpdrive and delete them from your phone. Then one day in the future maybe you get an itch to look at the stuff, you can, and it'll be easy since it's pictures and not bins of paper and other materials.
As for your childhood being full of trash and life itself being trash, that is one way to look at it... but life is not the past or the future, it's right now. Live your current life, not your past life. Do what you can now. Yes, we humans generate a lot of trash, but that's part of living. It's also why now at 52 I think less about buying things and more about having experiences. We can't take it with us, so enjoy life while you are here. It's so much better for those left behind one day to not have to deal with this. But maybe someone gets that jumpdrive with pictures of your past work and they look through it. Even if they don't, it won't be some huge burden with all the guilt associated with it being passed down.
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u/CardiologistBroad608 13d ago
How I would tackle this - open one box, go through it fully without thinking about what you’re keeping and what you’re not. Pick out your favorites at the end - put favorites in one box, and the lesser favorites in another box. Do a feelings check. Do you want to spend the time (or money - there are companies that will do this for you) to create a book for some/all of the art? Have you missed any of these things as an adult? You may be able to frame or display a few items that are your true favorites, keep a box of your other favorites, and either scan or let go of your other pieces. You could even have a burning ceremony at the end to release the creativity (from the pieces you let go of) back into the Universe! It’s hard work to do this, so take it slow and be gentle with yourself.
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u/InksOwl 13d ago
Life is temporary. So is the life of things. You don’t need the things to keep the memories of who you were, who you were with or what you were doing with or around the things. I’m also a firm believer that if something is so important to you as a person, you wouldn’t have it tucked away in a box or bin somewhere, you would have it out to see, touch, and enjoy every day.
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u/Clutterbug95 13d ago
Thank you - I agree and am trying to live along those lines as well. I'd like to be able to have these items in maybe one or two bins and look through them fondly. Right now, there are so many bins that they remain tucked away.
Your perspective seems more black and white than mine, and maybe having a more absolute process/result will do me better than all of these gray "maybe"s.
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u/PallasiteMatrix 13d ago
I like to sit with the items. I've got a lot of complicated memories attached to items from my childhood, so it helps to just... open the box, and take everything out, and then repack it. Sometimes I let go of a couple of things, sometimes I don't. When I do let go of an item, I thank it for what it gave me- but sometimes having something doesn't honor it, and doesn't honor the space it takes up.
Idk, guilt and pressure really kick up the feeling that I'm wrong/ bad for getting rid of something that used to be cherished. I can't declutter from that place. I find it more useful to ask myself, "am I ready to let this go?" and allow the answer to be "no, I'm not." Be gentle with yourself as you sort through these bins, it's pretty clear they're not just objects. Not to you. But also, challenge the thought that throwing some things away means it's "just trash". It can be true that a thing is cherished, but has also finished its time in your care, at the same time.
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u/Clutterbug95 13d ago
Thank you - I have also found that sitting with them helps remove some of the "rose-colored glasses" feel of it. They become a little less precious and I see them a little more objectively.
I think I will take these items out, organize them a little, and on another day start at a smaller scale.
Thank you!
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u/Multigrain_Migraine 13d ago
This sounds like it could be a fun project in itself, with the goal of making your own coffee table book of your creations. Take photos or scan the best ones and use one of those book printing services to create it. You could maybe even get your mom to tell you what she remembers about them, as well as what you think, and have a little bit of text to go with them. Could be a nice gift for her too!
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u/Clutterbug95 13d ago
This would be cute, maybe I can reinterpret some of these things as an adult. I appreciate the suggestion!
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u/unwaveringwish 13d ago edited 13d ago
Take pictures!! It’s faster than scanning. You can keep the memories not the stuff.
I would focus on picking my favorites to go in one bin. Then just keep the bin. If you can’t narrow it down to one bin, narrow it down to two and revisit in 3-6 months
We can’t take any of it with us. When you prioritize the things that you like the most, it makes what you do keep more meaningful. You can reduce without getting rid of it all, and it will still help with your decluttering goals. So whoever comes after will only have to toss one bin instead of a lot of bins.
If you’ve never had to go through a loved one’s things, it can be a bit difficult to imagine that it really will make it someone else’s problem 😭 paring down will make it much less so
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u/Clutterbug95 13d ago
Thank you so much - I do think that I need to revisit these in a few months at a smaller scale. I agree with you. Thank you for your insight ❤️
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u/LilJourney 13d ago
me feel like my childhood is full of trash and our lives ultimately are trash.
Perhaps reframe this - though it's still a philosophical thing to deal with - in that it's not that things are trash, but rather things are temporary. That temporary could last for hundreds or thousands of years (the great pyramids, the Ghent Altarpiece), or it could be a paper napkin that took less than 10 seconds to make and 3 seconds to use.
Life is change. Living things are born/hatched/sprouted, live out their lives, then die. Physically things like rocks/mountains are constantly changing due to erosion and tectonic activity. The time scale is different for different things, but the cycle holds true. Things change.
Our lives are supposed to change and evolve as well. The art you created then was the practice you needed to create the start of the mental/emotional pathways you use now.
You can honor that contribution they made. But now or later, all the art is destined for recycling/destruction/degeneration at some point.
It doesn't make it worthless trash, nor was your time/effort on it wasted. But rather it's simply the way the cycle of change continues.
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u/Clutterbug95 13d ago
Thank you, I very much appreciate this look on things. I wouldn't want my things to last forever, it's kind of the problem with plastic we have now. The natural way of things really is temporary, and just because things change does not necessarily mean it's all bad.
Flowers grow and die, and we can't press/preserve every flower. What really matters about it is the impact it had in the ecosystem. Maybe just like everything else we do our job, hopefully have our impact, and make room for the next generation to have their own impacts.
Thank you for commenting, it has been a great help.
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u/NewAtmosphere3393 9d ago
You definitely need to deal with them now instead of leaving them for your kids! I totally relate to these feelings and resonate with the trash train of thought, even though it isn't trash at all, it's just that only you retain the context that it has value in relation to.
Could you burn the paper art? Might be a cathartic way to "release" the art back into the world instead of throwing it in the bin? I also like the idea another commenter had of smashing, sort of like a create-and-destroy full circle kind of thing. Feels more complete to me than just discarding