lost memories

While fulfilling my duties as the security guard in my folks' home in Laguna while they were away, I tried vainly to rummage through the junk in my former room (turned bodega) to locate precious mementos of my younger days -- letters from friends and those who've I've held dear, movie and concert tickets that stirred up various emotions, various notes on pieces of paper and memo and sticky pads from significant individuals, photos, birthday greetings, various keepsakes and little souvenirs -- only to realize that I cannot, for the several hours I've rummaged, find them.

And I fear that I've lost them forever.

These little stuff, while seeming to be nothing more than junkable stuff to others, tell my story. In a nutshell, one can get a glimpse of who I am, and more likely who I was, with all the things that are contained in that medium-sized filofax. In between the covers of that filofax one can immerse in what things I value most in life. In the concerted junk, one can understand why I am now who I am and what has shaped my entire being.

And unfortunately for me, I've now lost them all.

Elaine would probably be the best person to understand my penchant for keeping things as she herself is another such junkie. Like myself, she is a sentimentalist and a romantic at heart -- always looking back to the past either for help in tackling the now and tomorrow, or for comfort, or for anchorage when the present seems forbidding and unsettling. Still got that box of keepsakes, Layne?

The bulging filofax I lost contains approximately stories and memories of my life from highschool up to college. That's a good eight years of memories down the drain. Definitely no monetary value but rates high on the sentimentality and emotional scales. Included in that bunch were letters and cards I got from my ex-girlfriend who is now my wife plus several movie tickets on dates we've had, and not to mention receipts from the coffee shops we frequently haunted during our courtship years.

Also lost is a bunch of letters from a good friend whose insights to life were always thought-provoking (like how it is that when we write letters we do not talk to the person himself or herself but to a piece of paper or how it is that we learn to understand early on that life is indeed not always fair and that you need to compromise).

Gone as well are various memorabilia from Peyups days including blue books with positive comments from professors, my class cards, my CMC library card, my acceptance letter to UP, among other things.

In junk heaven have gone pictures - highschool ones, college days and I believe, some personal pictures of my younger days when I was no more than a little boy with a rather big head on a small frame. I'm also missing photos of my days in the Lhuillier Group with former officemates which I was sure was also included in between that filofax's cover.

And oh, yes, letters from past loves as well are now in oblivion.

I was meaning to eventually clean up this "mess" actually and just retain the really, really important mementos (those of my wife's and those that I believe would cost something in the future should one of my friends suddenly become famous) but fate (or a rather overzealous cousin who believes cleanliness is the only virtue) played a cruel joke instead.

And now, they're all gone, gone, gone ... whoa whoa whoa.