Part of being back in San Miguel and tidying up is going through our things and deciding what to leave, what to give away, and what to try and bring with us. What we can bring with us is very limited, obviously, so we have to choose carefully. Some things are easy to leave behind: We’re not going to bring our special mugs or dinnerware, after all. Others are easy to bring along: We are packing certain important documents, even though most of them we have as a digital copy. You never know who will need an original copy of a birth certificate (it happens).

But it gets more difficult when we get to Ethan’s childhood possessions. On the one hand, we have cultivated a mindset where material things are not that important and can never replace memories and time together. On the other hand, there is power in the tokens that objects become of memories and events from our lives. It takes real work sometimes to not be overly nostalgic.

While we have collected a number of things over the years, most of them can go. We probably don’t need to keep that amazing bodysurfing board that we got on our visit to Zihuatanejo years ago. But every time I see it, I am reminded of the hours and hours Ethan and I spent in the water at Playa la Ropa and the fun we had together and all the other memories we made that week.

Of all the objects, I think the two most important we’ll hold onto are his sketchbooks and his childhood stuffed animals. He has a pile of sketchbooks going back to when he was maybe 5 years old or so. I don’t know how attached he is to them, but I feel they are his childhood and his objects so he should go through them and decide what he wants to do with them. They are his to keep or destroy.

And then the other are some of his childhood stuffed animals. While I think he is no longer attached to these, it is more about his parents and something precious to hold onto stretching back to his infancy. And grandkids…who knows? Ultimately, these may even go away, but not yet.

And there are other things to go through, but the list gets smaller. I still have to go through all my books (separate post). I’ve gotten rid of most of my papers that I’d collected while learning to guide at El Charco–I had accumulate a 2-foot tall stack of environmental history, Mexican culture and mythology, and earth and life science papers. Much is now in my head. Most is backed up digitally. And all of it is learning for the next phase of life.

In the end, sorting through our things will be less about stuff and more about the stories we tell ourselves. I think it’s about looking back on who and where we’ve been, what we’ve valued, and how we want to carry those memories forward. Some things are easy to let go of; others, we cling to a little longer, a little deeper, a little tighter. As the list gets shorter and the objects dwindle, what’s left feels more intentional. It’s not just about what we’re taking with us; it’s about but who we are as we move forward and who we will become in this next phase of our life.