Throwing Things Away

Is some trash worth keeping?
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Hello, my name is Troy (hi Troy), and I am a pack rat. At least, I think I have been. If you could see the current state of my bedroom, you'd think I was hording a nest together for the coming winter. Okay, so it's mostly laundry. And sculpting tools. And lifting weights that, according to the indent ever-deepening in the carpet beneath them, haven't been lifted in quite some time. And an air conditioning unit my apartment says I can't put out my window because it looks unseemly (and I agree, but I'm dying in here).

I belong to a family of pack rats. In the very least, we're all pack-rat-ish. My garage at home has stuff that haven't seen the light of day in two decades. And I'm helping my Grandma go through an apartment-garage full of furniture, clothing, books, and papers she hasn't seen for quite a while (mostly just hauling it up and down a flight of stairs). A lot of this detritus is off to Deseret Industries (the Utah-equivalent of Goodwill), and hopefully they can find a use with someone else. Most of these things bring back memories, and most of those good.

Of all of the possessions I own, there aren't any that mean more to me than the things I've made, written, or drawn with my own hands.

My grandma found this gem in the midst of a lot of papers; I must have drawn this about the time I was starting to learn cursive. It's Kirby on stage... or a desk, maybe? Whistling!

From a few months ago. I like to illustrate whistling, maybe?!

I guess that isn't strange; after all, no one goes about a creative project without creating some sort of attachment. But there's part of me (maybe the creative perfectionist part) that absolutely hates my previous work, and wants nothing more than to delete it and start over. Not strange either, I admit.

I don't know how classic a school lesson this is, but I had a teacher once instruct me to never be enamoured with my own work. To drill this point home, we did an art assignment of some sort, and then, a few hours into sketching and without warning, were told to throw it away and start over. Now that I'm writing this, I want to say this happened in my drawing class in college a few years ago, but I remember it happening a lot earlier in my life because...

...I've been throwing things away for years. Stories, drawings, even my first Master Chief-inspired helmet. As early as twelve, when I really started loving writing.

Why? I don't know for sure. And I still want to do it, looking at some of the things I've done over the past couple of years. I try to convince myself I haven't improved since I was little, and that's usually enough to make me hit 'delete'. It's the prideful part of me that doesn't want anyone to view my creative brain.

Some of it I miss. A lot of my old stories, for sure. I still edit what I have left from time to time. I guess that's what those old collections of refrigerator artwork kept by mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers are for - to help you remember that you've done some growing up.