The Box for ‘In Case Of.’

By Sylvie, France.

Some things are waiting to be useful. Others are keeping a memory safe. The difficult part is knowing which is which.

I like when things are organised. Old batteries have their special place. Cables have another box. The cables I use every day are easy, but the others — from old laptops and different machines — are more complicated. I have so many that I do not really know what belongs to what. If I need something, I ask my husband. He understands the cables.

Then there is another box in my dressing.

That box is different. I know exactly where it is, but there are already too many things inside to close it properly.

A few days ago, I looked.

There were small Halloween lights that we used when the children were younger. There was glue. There was a protection for my thermos bottle that I know I will probably never use. There were also little weights for holding down an outdoor tablecloth when it is windy.

The problem is that we have a table where we do not need a tablecloth.

So why do I still have the weights?

In case of.

The case that never comes.

Sometimes you have something and you do not really know what to do with it. You do not need it now, but perhaps one day you will. Throwing it away feels too final.

So you put it somewhere.

It keeps your mind quiet because you have not put it in the garbage. You have saved it, just in case.

Most of the time, of course, that case never happens.

The tablecloth weights are a perfect example. Perhaps one day I will change the table. Perhaps the new table will need a tablecloth. Perhaps it will be windy.

Until then, the weights stay in the box.

My husband is much better at keeping things than I am. He keeps really everything, but there is an advantage to this because he also does a lot of work around the house and outside. If you need something, you can go to him. He probably has it.

I am more likely to decide that something has had enough time.

Once a year, or sometimes once every two years, I go through things for a market sale. That is the moment to decide: keep it for another year, sell it cheaply, give it away for free, or finally put it in the garbage.

I once had perfumes that I knew I would not use anymore. They had been expensive, but keeping them in my makeup drawer did not make them more useful. I sold them very cheaply because people at the market negotiate all the time.

Now I am simply happy that they are no longer in my drawer.

Some boxes are different.

There are things, however, that I do not want to treat in the same way.

I have boxes with photographs. I keep birthday cards when somebody has written a nice message inside. A card with only a name does not mean very much to me, but when somebody has taken the time to write something personal, I prefer to keep it.

I also kept things from when my children were small. There are school photographs from every year and boxes with things connected to their childhood and some of their first experiences.

Some of those things may look ridiculous now. That does not mean they are useless.

My children sometimes want to look at them again. One of them recently asked where the box was with her first shoes because she wanted to see them.

That is different from keeping an unknown cable.

You do not want to lose your memory. These things are a part of your life.

Eventually, the boxes will belong to my children. They can sort through them and decide what they want. Perhaps they will keep everything. Perhaps they will throw some of it away. That will be their choice.

I have already learned that throwing away somebody else’s memories can be dangerous. One of my children once noticed that I had got rid of some things from childhood and was not very happy with me.

For me, if something stays in the house for years and nobody does anything with it, there comes a point when I wonder why we still have it.

But apparently, other people in my family do not always agree.

The photographs we would rather forget.

Photographs are especially dangerous because the ones you would most like to disappear are often the ones your family enjoys the most.

I have an old photograph from when I was young and had very short, very curly hair. There were so many curls that at school they gave me a nickname: sheep.

When I look at that photograph now, I think the hair looks terrible.

Unfortunately, my children know about it.

If they want to make me angry, they show me the picture. Even worse, they have copies on their phones.

Next year I will celebrate my 50th birthday, and I already know what they are capable of. They save funny and bad photographs of me. Sometimes I can even see that a picture has been saved. Somewhere, they have a gallery.

I am sure they are preparing something.

Perhaps this is the real danger of keeping things. You think you are protecting a memory, and many years later the memory returns with very curly hair and your children laughing at you.

Still, I would not throw away the photographs.

That is the strange difference.

The Halloween lights can probably go. The thermos protection can go. One day I may even accept that I am never going to need those tablecloth weights.

But the school pictures, the cards with real messages, the first shoes and even the terrible haircut belong to another kind of box.

Some things stay because we imagine they might become useful.

Others stay because they already were.