The Things We Keep

My wife gets on me sometimes because I have difficulty throwing things away. I’m not a hoarder but I may be on the verge of being a packrat. For example, I have a fifty-five-gallon aquarium sitting empty and inverted in my basement that I can’t part with. I’ve had it since middle school. It was my first terrarium. Before I owned it, it was my dad’s fish tank. Jessica doesn’t understand why things like that will sit around and languish for years taking up space in our small house. For a long time, it didn’t click why I held so tightly to material things. Then, one day memories flooded my brain, and I realized exactly where it all started.

I’ll spare the traumatic details of the situation, but when I was around seven years old, we had to flee our home. We took only what we could carry, loaded it into my mom’s small car, and left our house. The situation there was volatile and the person perpetuating it was away at work. So, we used that opportunity to get away.

I will never forget how sad I was about the forty-gallon aquarium full of tropical fish in our living room that we had to leave. It was too big to carry. It was nonessential, so it stayed. Maybe I was attached to that aquarium because it reminded me of a time when my parents were still together, although I have very few memories of that considering they divorced when I was around five years old. Likely, I just loved watching the aquarium and felt a deep empathy—as I always have—for the plight of those helpless animals. Who would take care of them now that we are gone? If the man we were fleeing from couldn’t take care of us, he surely wouldn’t care about those fish.

After that incident, we lived with my grandmother—my mom’s mom—aka Mawmaw. That house was even smaller than the one we left. With my brother and I sharing a room—as we did most of my young life—and my mom and sister sharing a room, there was little space for non-essentials.

We moved two or three more times until finally settling in Archdale, North Carolina when I was in the middle of seventh grade. My mom remarried an amazing man named Mike. This allowed my siblings, mother, and I to move into a nicer home with plenty of room. There was no threat of violence or instability. Mike was—still is—a rock. That’s when I got that fifty-five-gallon aquarium.

I kept red-eared slider turtles in that aquarium in my room. My own room! For the first time in my life, I had a place that was just mine. This new house had a small room next to our attic that Mom and Mike converted into a bedroom for me six months after we moved in. I gladly opted for the smaller room for a chance to leave the bunkbed in my brother’s and my shared room. Mike—and my mom’s hard work and determination—made our lives better in every way. This was the first time I felt secure. That’s why I can’t get rid of that aquarium. It represents so much more than the glass and silicon that holds it together.

Sometimes, a thing is just a thing. Over the years, that aquarium has housed everything from tropical fish to snakes, frogs, and even a prairie dog. I always find a way to use it. Is it in the way? Yes. But when I need it, it’s there. I wipe off the cobwebs and build a new stand to sit it on. Voila, it’s brand new again.

There are a few other small items like this that I keep around and only I know their provenance. I still have every book I’ve ever owned. I won’t get rid of them. Despite the space they occupy in our house, they’re meaningful. There’s a little yellow cup I keep bolts and screws in sitting on a toolbox that I’ve had since I was five years old. It means nothing to anyone. It’s just plastic. It came from a dogfood bag if I remember correctly. It’s special to me. I won’t throw it away.

Call me crazy. Sometimes, a thing is more than a thing. The memories they hold are like a genie waiting to be summoned. They may not even be good memories, but damn if it doesn’t feel good to just feel something from time to time.