My winterim looked like this — five hours wearing a tangle of wires and detectors to image my brain for research, four showings of “Wicked” in theaters, three Christmas dinners, two drinks at Purdue University’s most famous bar and one impending move. Make no mistake — the last item in this list occupied far more of my time than these other, albeit narratively compelling, anecdotes.
In a few weeks, my parents will list the house where my family has lived for the past 11-and-a-half years. If you walked into my childhood bedroom right now, you’d find the formerly bright lavender walls repainted a drab shade I’ve taken to calling “sad beige.” The room itself is mostly empty except for some furniture — my bed, dresser, bookshelf and bureau — the result of the many hours over the past six weeks that I spent sorting.
For the past decade, each time I have acquired something that contained any sort of meaning, I have stuffed it into my closet, dresser or desk. When it came time to go through these items I had loyally clung to, I found that the vast majority were now leached of any iota of sentimental value. Each new drawer revealed yet another heap of possessions that now amounted to needless clutter. Most notably, I discovered: a lump of unfired, glitter-covered clay from the magnet manufacturer where my elementary school best friend’s parents work, photographs of my youth soccer teams dating back to 2009, a calendar listing rehearsal times for the musical I performed in six years ago and my Presidential Youth Fitness Program certificate from 2013 — signed by Obama.
But this isn’t my pitch for rejecting sentimentality completely. No matter how many old physics tests I shredded or reams of piano sheet music I donated, I filled an entire box for our new house with the letters my dad has sent me over the past four years and the playbills — in chronological order — from almost every musical I’ve ever seen. In fact, when my parents wanted to throw out a photo of themselves at their senior prom, I brought it back to Hanover and taped it to the wall of my room instead.
All this is my long-winded way of saying that I struggle with deciphering what’s worth saving and what doesn’t need to be preserved for posterity. When I finished sorting my room at home, I felt an overwhelming sense of relief at minimizing the level of clutter. I purposefully came back to Hanover a few days early to declutter my room here, too. Despite my best minimalist intentions, I’ve come to realize that I often hang on to all of the detritus that makes up my everyday life because getting rid of these items makes me feel as though I’ll forget the memories associated with them.
And yet, saving everything does nothing but water down the sentimental value of any one thing. Instead, I’m trying to make peace with disposing of the paraphernalia associated with memories that, while meaningful, don’t need to be physically preserved. Throwing out my red plastic whistle doesn’t erase my memories of the two summers I spent lifeguarding at my town’s municipal pool. Disposing of the soccer cleats I wore during my senior year of high school can’t negate the 13 years I spent playing the sport.
As my time at Dartmouth comes to a close, I’ll have to repeat this process in a few months, this time sorting through my four years in Hanover instead of my life in Indiana. Maybe I’ll have cracked the code of what to carry with me into my postgraduate life and what to leave behind — but probably not. Until then, I’ll spend the next 20 weeks squirreling away my ticket stubs, midterms and, of course, issues of Mirror.
This week in Mirror, our writers supply stories from both close to home and more distant locales. One writer profiles the College organist, Henry Danaher ’08, while another spotlights Mahshu, a vintage clothing store in Woodstock, Vt. For those of you who already miss the big city, one writer reflects on a quest for the best dumplings on New York City’s St. Mark’s Place.
The start of winter means it’s the final term for the 181st Directorate. Soon enough, we’ll be passing the torch. So whether you’re scrambling to figure out your classes — like me — or celebrating the return of ski season, catch this directorate while you can and take a break to sift through our latest issue. Welcome to 2025, Mirror! Here’s to a happy new year.
