Once upon a time our marriage hopes were defined by “better or worse” and “richer or poorer”. And they still are. But an amendment was made to our vows somewhere along the way: “For more stuff and better stuff”.

This was punctuated this last weekend as we were emptying our very full attic for a garage sale. Who knew that 20 years of marriage could accumulate so much junk? As I dropped box after box of stuff, we hadn’t seen in a decade, onto the floor of our garage I knew we had a problem—a stuff problem.

This post however, isn’t about our American addiction of purchase power, but about memories. Ironically, I am not a nostalgic person. Firmly ingrained in my psyche is the utilitarian nature of things. Use them and discard them. Affections are made for people—period!

And yet it’s interesting how our memories and emotions are attached to things. Couches, rockers, gumball machines, Christmas tree stars—old things, worn out and destined for the heap and yet remain priceless for us.

That old rocker, for anyone else, is simply a piece of furniture for a baby’s room. But we know it has the fingerprints of our infant who happens to now be driving. We stare at this broken down piece and get lost in what it used to be. A grin takes shape. A lost treasure has been found! We convince ourselves of its immeasurable worth.

Back in the attic it goes.

The baby dollhouse our daughter enjoyed during her pre-school years would have fetched a good garage sale price of $20. Our hands gently rub the cracked paint and broken door and think back to those sweet moments of our daughter’s pure laugh. How can we part with something so magical and personal?

Back in the attic it goes.

Old paintings and china and silver we will never ever use opened the dam of forgotten moments. Don’t even get me started on the box of love letters Amy and I wrote to each other while she was away during grad school. All of a sudden the 1000 degree attic stops in time as I remember the joy and rush of virginal love. The box still smelled of perfume and old flowers. For anyone else this was a throw away.

For me, back in the attic it goes.

This is how life works. We buy a house and fill it with stuff. And then we buy a bigger house and fill it with more stuff. The attics fill up. We wonder why we have so much.

But if we’re lucky those houses aren’t just filled with things, they are filled with people. Babies, first dates and rehearsal dinners all fill the caverns of our homes that mark our stuff. Memories soak into the fabric of every piece of furniture and dish. We know there is no magic in our attic. Every piece shoved up the ladder is a future garage sale item.

But when we try to part with them, even for a good price, we would rather part with a limb. A memory is priceless, we think. It links us to our people and our past and reminds us of who we are.

Next time I pull out that old baseball glove I won’t think about how much I can get for it. I’ll drift back to the spring afternoons when I was teaching my boy how to throw.

Back in the attic it goes.