The reason I'm thinking about this is that by the time you are reading this, I'll be scrapbooking out at the farm in Duck River, TN.
As I was putting my stuff together, I started thinking about it. My heart just isn't in it. Partly due to the fact that I'm still pretty sad about my brother. I know it's going to take some time to get over it. But in the meantime, scrapbooking seems a little pointless. Okay, not a little--a lot!
You know how I am always preaching how "our kids don't want our stuff?" Well, I'm about ready to say that includes my scrapbooks. I decided to count how many I have. After nearly 20 years of scrapbooking---the total---so far---is 86! I have them all over the house.
Luckily for me, I have a lot of shelves in this house. A. LOT. But my girls do not. What in the world are they going to do? Now I've bestowed a burden on them.
Okay, let's do the math.
If you consider my granddaughters, that makes 7 girls in the family divided by 86 equals 12.2 albums each (are you impressed that I figured that out? Okay, I used a calculator). That's not even counting all the albums I've already made for them individually! There's no way that they are going to want me to hand them a dozen (+many more by the time I do it) scrapbooks. Plus they'll need a truck to carry them away---they are heavy!
I figure, I can reduce the number they will have to deal with by giving them to extended family. The number of nieces I have is 7 (the nieces on the other side of the family do their own scrapbooking, so they have their own problems ahead). Of those, I'm pretty sure only about 2 might actually want ONE! So if I go further and give one to each of the "littles"---girls---that makes 5 more. I'm pretty sure those "littles" might want them since they will be so "old" (the books, not them) that maybe they'll have an interest in family history.
Even with all that math, I've only reduced the burden by one album each.
What to do? It's time to re-acess why I do this. I do it because I'm a storyteller at heart. In reality, I could stop right now and my stories would still be told---right here on my blog. Even that---I used to have my blog printed in to a book every year. I stopped that last year for the same reason. I've already been blogging for 11 years. The books were just piling up. I guess my blog will be in "the cloud" so can be accessed at any time. At least I hope so.
The creative part of scrapbooking is fun---or at least it used to be. And the act of creating is pretty relaxing. Add in the fellowship, then there is still value. I guess that's going to have to be enough of a reason for now.
I used to say that I didn't care if my books ended up in an antique shop. But now I have my doubts. There have to be millions that will wind up the same way. I'm afraid to say that I think they may be destined for the landfill. Ouch!
It's sad really!
It really doesn't matter what happens to them after they are gone - the value is that it brings YOU joy NOW - in the creating and the storytelling. If it doesn't bring you joy any longer stop doing it. If it does, don't worry about what happens after. Likely they'll all look through them, take pages they find meaningful, and recycle the rest... but it doesn't matter!
ReplyDeleteI scrapbook because I enjoy it so much, realizing that once I'm gone they will most likely all be thrown out. That's ok with me. I agree with Cheri - when it stops being FUN, find something different to do.
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