Sentimental journey into a drawer

With the start of a new year, most of us have hope and excitement. Many make resolutions to diet and exercise. Some vow to read the classics they avoided in high school. Others run to a store for bins and trash bags to declutter and organize closets and drawers.

Not me.

I haven’t made any resolutions since the 1980s. To me, they’re just broken promises made to oneself. I’ve already read many classics, so cross that off the list. Being a sentimental scrapbooker, I hold onto every memento I come across. One day, those pieces of ephemera will turn into family scrapbook treasures.

No matter how tempting it is to join the bandwagon of change, I won’t make any false promises to purge drawers. I have two special drawers. When I bought a new nightstand a few years ago, I picked the one with the biggest bottom drawer so there would be a holding place before the treasures land on a scrapbook page.

Being an electrician’s sister, I own an assortment of extension cords, and USB cables, too. If light is needed in an emergency, I have enough flashlights to light up Citi Field and batteries of every size and, of course, candles.

The most important thing in that drawer is my brother’s old wallet. After the dust settled from his unexpected death, I couldn’t throw it away. The leather is creased to the shape of his back pocket. I’ll never throw it out — it will take up a place in my heart and in my coveted special kitchen drawer.

The drawer in my nightstand is a haven for treasures of an overly sentimental scrapbooker. I think of myself as a curator of memories. There isn’t a wedding I went to that I don’t have the invitation and place card from. In my mid-20s, weddings were coming fast and furious. I used to bring the invitation to prove I was invited.

Now that my friends’ kids are getting married, I keep those invitations, too. One day, I plan to do a then-and-now scrapbook page and will dig out my friends’ and kids’ wedding invitations. It’s a deep drawer with a seemingly never-ending bottom.

These mementos are a timeline of my life. For every Broadway play or concert I’ve attended, I have the ticket stub and Playbill. Search deeper and I’ll find a scented envelope with all the cards I received with flower arrangements. My favorite is the one from my brother. In his own handwriting, it says: "From the best brother ever Mitch March." As my career as the Long Island University director of Planned Giving progressed, I saved all the name badges I received at conferences and luncheons. The badge titles range from development assistant all the way to director — a timeline of my success.

Many treasures in that drawer celebrate the big and little moments of the patchwork quilt of my life. If you asked me why I keep these things, I could go all Dr. Phil and say I’m holding onto my past because I’m afraid of my future. Or those mementos are reassurances that I do have a vital and full life. Whatever the reason, I’m not cleaning out either junk drawer anytime soon.

Reader Cindy March lives in Farmingdale.