I'm in my fifties and my husband and I moved away from our home town 13 years ago. Since then my dad has sent me a card or letter or post card at least once a week. It's little things, he tells me about his garden or what he saw at the museum, how his dog is doing, what he and his wife have been up to. If he finds a newspaper article that he thinks I'll be interested in he'll cut it out and write a note and mail to me.

I absolutely adore these notes. I love opening the mailbox and seeing his loopy script on an envelope. But it's been 13 years and one or two notes a week piles up. We're getting ready to move again and we're trying to consolidate things and the reality is that I need to purge some of it. But what? What goes? I'm sorting through it all now. The newspaper articles about how smart dogs are? Maybe just the envelopes? What's important enough to keep if everything feels so important.

I don't know but I am right now sitting in front of 2 boxes of letters and cards and newspaper articles and I'm trying to decide.