Obsession

I have more pictures - framed and unframed - than should be allowed by law. From our childhood to our travels and milestone events, I have an obsession with framing and displaying photos. This habit got a shock when we sold our house in Virginia in 2022.

The realtor said we had to depersonalize the house. My first reaction? C’mon, “depersonalize” is not even a real word!

Our realtor was clear: get rid of everything that distracts from the rooms; nothing that shows your personality; focus on a clinical showing of the house; let the buyers imagine the space with their things, not yours.

Conceptually I got it, but the framed photos tell such awesome stories, I implored. Realtor held firm: the photos have to go. So, I dutifully boxed them in the old house and unboxed them in the townhouse. And then boxed them again when we sold the townhouse.

As we settle into our home in New England, I am genuinely shocked at how many photos I have! My realtor has reconditioned me to displaying a few photos on the main floor and the rest of the frames are now in the basement. My new strategy is that if you want to know about us, take a tour in the basement.

That’s just the frames. The loose photos and the albums and the negatives (remember those relics?) are treasures that are imploding. Album pages have yellowed. The metal coil in one of the albums has sprung dangerously and some of the spines are fraying. I have a slide projector and three reels of slides to boot.

How do I modernize this stock?

I can’t.

Looking at album prices on Amazon gave me angina.

I have 50 albums of all sizes. 50!! We’ve only been married for 44 years and switched from analog to digital cameras 10+ years ago! Clearly, we kept Kodak alive single-handedly! And now the least expensive album is $15. Times 50, that is 750 bucks 😳

My aging inventory is going nowhere.

Our children enjoy looking through the old photos and that brings me enormous joy. There are photos of our parents from their youth, of Tarun and me from our infancy and younger days and mountains of photos of the children growing up.

Memories are a blessing for sure. I can never get rid of these photos, frames and albums even as they age and fray. Our kids will have to dedicate a closet to house them. And their kids will have to do the same.

Photos are a curse too! The sheer volume is mind boggling, keeping them intact is a huge responsibility and you cannot pitch them for sentimental reasons. Now that I am retired, I could digitize the photos but where will those go and how long will we keep them on the cloud? We are already struggling with the photos on our phones. Who will handle the logistics when we are gone. Heck, who will even remember the password?!

What a conundrum.

Now I am telling myself that the memories that are most precious are the ones we carry within us. The ones that will go with us when we part this earth. Everything else needs space that data centers and shelves will not be a be to offer to addicts like me.

For now, welcome to the photos in our basement. They tell stories that I have forgotten, they hold some faces I don’t remember and they hide memories so dear that sometimes I can’t bear to revisit them, especially of the ones we have lost.

Thank goodness for what remains safely sealed in the pages and frames. To my kids, the caution is simple: brace because Mom has an obsession for which you will pay a heavy price someday, literally and figuratively.