Spring cleaning Memories

I can recall all the days where I have been near convulsing, yelling at the kids to pick up their stuff. I'm going to throw it away, send it to the goodwill or sell it if you don't put it up. A declaration that I would regularly bark out like an army commander. Did they not realize everything I was already doing, as if I had extra time to pick up all their junk. I had enough junk of my own clouding up my vision, actually suffocating me. Sometimes I think we are on the road to hoarders. Just why do we have all this stuff anyway?
Today, I continued to rid the house of 10 year old jeans that would never button again, purses that will never have money in them, and probably never had any to start with, and toys that had been beaten, chewed and slobbered on. I pulled out shoe boxes from the tops of their closets that I had stuffed with toys months ago and put away. They were not missed at all so it was time to get rid of them. I rummaged through the boxes of toys looking at all the little dolls, trucks and figures. I ended up keeping a few. Caleb might like these, I thought, but actually I liked them. It was harder than I thousht getting rid of those old toys. I wasn't keeping them because Caleb might like them but keeping them from the memories they held. Letting those old toys go meant letting the kids grow up. I'm not sure I'm ready for that. Well...not until they want a job and then I'm on board.