A few weeks ago, my bestie wrote an excellent blog post about organization, as in decluttering her house.

Although she has made progress, she conceded there are items she just can’t let go of, including a videotape of the Tae Bo exercise routine. (By the way, I also used to do Tae Bo back in the day, but I gave my tapes away a long time ago.)

Anyway, I sent her a message after I read the post and told her not to be so hard on herself. After all, everyone keeps stuff they no longer need or use. To prove my point, I told her I hold onto the video cassettes I recorded off the TV of Princess Diana’s funeral.

Indeed, every time I consider throwing the tapes into the trash, I hesitate and decide to keep them … just in case.

Just in case of what, you might ask.

The heck if I know.

I no longer own a VCR. Even if I could locate one, I’m not sure the tapes, which were recorded almost 25 years ago, would play. What’s more, if I’m in the mood for self-torture, I’m sure I could find the funeral on the Internets. There is no rational reason for me to hang onto those tapes.

Of course, an argument could be made there was no rational reason to record the funeral and the accompanying coverage. Need I remind you, however, that the world was in mourning. Sir Elton John rewrote and preformed an iconic song at the funeral! After all, she was the people’s princess!

To circle back to a point I made earlier, unless you’re a hoarder or you’ve started keeping more and more stuff you no longer need or use, there’s nothing wrong with keeping a little bit here and there.

There’s also nothing wrong with shoving things in a closet because you can’t decide what to do with it. When I was younger, I would have recoiled at this attitude and stated that everything has a place. Now I nod and say that stuff has a place on the top shelf of the closet, far away from my gaze.

Maybe some day I’ll deal with that stuff. Maybe I won’t.

Just like maybe some day I’ll finally decide to toss the Diana tapes.

Or not.

But I’m holding onto them for some reason and they’re not taking up much space.

So, they stay.

This post originally appeared in the Appalachian News-Express.

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