My Dad and Mom divorced when I was 19 after over 30 years of marriage. Due to family dynamics and my coping mechanism of just avoiding dealing with big life topics so I can remain numb without feelings or emotions, I have some reflections lately on this time.

My mom and dad took what was important to them. My mom tried to save things for me she felt I thought were important. When I went over to see what Items i wanted from my 18 years of childhood and memories I kept few. Thankfully my mom kept a lot of things I said could go. I didn’t want to deal with anything at the time and I’m glad she kept a lot of things that I still treasure.

My Dad kept very few things. I was surprised what he kept. Going through his stuff he kept basically a few engineering books, his fancy 90s camera, a few tshirts from my elementary and sport teams, some wooden bowls he made as a kid, all his art and trade certificates, and a few Knick knacks i gave him from his travels and things he collected from his travels.

What I thought he would have kept, or what would have been important, was not at all the case.

He basically kept all the travel gifts I gave him, a tshirt with my handprints for Father’s Day from when I was 5, a father of the year trophy from another Father’s Day, a beanie baby named hero I gave him for another Father’s Day….he literally kept everything from me. It made me realize how important I was to him. Not a lot of other things were important to him and it showed with what items he chose to keep throughout the last few years.

An entire life of achievements, projects, items, memories, and he really didn’t keep much because all that was not important to him.

A read a great post on here about “transitional objects”. I know I’ll keep many of his important things he kept. As transitional objects they help me honor him in many ways. Eventually I’ll be able to put these objects in storage and not need them around me all the time or feel the need to honor each and every object he left.

However

This stage of grief has taken an odd obsessive turn. I am not so much obsessed or upset or regretful with his things (or things he may have left behind in 2015 with the divorce). It’s clear he kept what was important to him and material things were just things.

I have recently become obsessed (or just very emotional) around objects from my childhood that I wish I had kept when my parents divorced.

But the worst part is, these objects are meaningless and i can’t figure out why they are so upsetting to me.

I know I have all the meaningful things and more from my childhood and also the things my dad gave me or i got on our travels throughout my life. I have millions of photos, and baby things, clothes, all of it and more (my mom still has some things she kept she knew were important to me)

But for example, I got extremely emotional the other day because I used to have a plastic stationary set that looked like Noah’s ark (I’m not religious it was just super cute). I never used it as a kid because I have this thing where if it is cute or nice i don’t want to “ruin it” by using it (another post to explain that one).

It’s not like my Dad and I used this stationary set, or it was really even part of my childhood activities, but for some reason it’s a soft spot.

I’ve looked on eBay and beyond trying to find another one to purchase it just so I can know I have it. I

Ive asked my mom if she remembers saving random stuffed animals I had that were never important, random toys, random rocks I collected.

I really feel so regretful right now that I didn’t save more of these things. despite these things not mattering and me having saved the things that were important to me as a kid.

Maybe I’m scared my dad wished he’d saved more, or if I saved more I’d have one more piece of my childhood to remember….I’m not sure why remembering random insignificant childhood items I no longer have is so upsetting to me right now

I used to follow a few thrift shop and 90s nostalgia accounts on tiktok. I can’t anymore. If I see a thrift video of a random item I remember I get sad and want to find the item so I can have it again. I’ve had to unfollow all of these types of accounts. It’s to painful to see a random Tupperware thrift store container find and cry over it.

Most recently I saw a nostalgic fb group post about sink frogs. We had one, it wasn’t significant, I actually think it got tossed many years ago, but here I am crying over a sponge holder wishing I could go back in time and save every single item stored in my childhood home for 18 years.

While I wanted to, I didn’t find a sponge frog to buy. I’ve really been trying to listen to my inner self when these things come up to figure out the real reason some random object is now important.

Anyone else?