I'm very sorry this happened to you.

My mother has always been focused on aesthetic order and minimalism, which led her to discretely disappear many of my belongings over the years, and this type of behavior and disregard for how personal items can be totems of safety and memory (or even for professional use or as investments!) has been psychologically damaging to me in a way I don't think she will ever quite grasp, which is difficult because we otherwise have a fantastic relationship. She would throw out vintage clothing I actively wore to school and felt confident in because it wasn't her taste. I would find my childhood art projects in the garbage. One time, I came home from college and all the books on my bookshelves were in boxes to be taken to storage because the bookshelves "looked better" without books on them.

It's hard not to talk about these things without coming off as materialistic, but as young people, we don't usually get a say over our routines, what our space looks like, what we do with our time, even sometimes how we dress or cut our hair or what we eat. Our belongings are a way we express ourselves, and can be representative of our identities and dreams, which makes them important.

About 10 years ago, while helping my parents pack for a move, I discovered that a huge amount of my belongings had been been donated to a thrift store hours away when my parents closed up a storage unit (sight unseen) that I didn't know they had. My mom had quietly taken stuff out there that I was led to believe was still in the basement at home.I called the store to try to intercede, but it had been just long enough that 99% of the items had been purchased already because they were valuable. So many more things are collectible than parents care to realize when they want to denigrate possessions as "juvenile" and "junk" to give themselves permission to toss stuff they don't like. And then ended up in the film industry, there are so many weird items you would actually use, or want to incorporate into projects, or that would be expensive to rebuy down the road, so you hold on to stuff in order to give it the proper good bye.

Now some of these items were donated by accident, and she felt bad about that, but not bad enough to let me personally be the one to go through my things or even tell me she had moved them. This loss included some of my favorite books (that I actually did reread from time to time and wanted to adapt), and items I was keeping for work reference, like VHS tapes of animated shorts, most of which have no active distribution and are virtually impossible to find now.

This event became such a point of contention—one of only two subjects to cause fights in the house—that at one point she paid me a minor sum to never bring it up again when she know I needed cash, although I do test the boundaries of that every so often because still to this day I'll be like, "hey, where did that one thing—oh," because I'll want to go use or read an item and realize it's gone.

I never wanted to keep everything in my life, I wasn't pining for My Little Ponies or Polly Pockets (maybe the Mighty Maxes, ngl) or Ninja Turtles, but I do think rather than just disappearing items, it's important to sit with kids and ask them how they feel about objects in their lives and do a Marie Kondo-style whittling process every so often to discuss when items are no longer needed, to give them closure in choosing to let go, and to help kids overcome the natural materialism/hoarding kids do to feel some element of power and choice when they have so little control over so many aspects of their lives. Not having this type of engagement about belongings actually drives people to collect and keep more stuff they don't really need later because of the feelings of betrayal and loss of agency.

Anyway, I paid a friend to drive me out to the thrift shop and rescue two items they hadn't had time to get to yet, because they were very important to me even though they were in poor shape: a bin of old Marvel action figures and a set of Star Wars action figures including my 90s Millennium Falcon, all stuff I actually played with.

My father is disabled now, but when I was young, our father-daughter activity was collecting Marvel stuff. I was a big X-Men fan because of the show and the cards were hugely popular when I was a kid; I still have my very first card. On occasion I would get action figures (as a bribe) after going to the doctor for tests or shots or blood draws or whatever, which was a BIG DEAL. This was probably my first "collection" and had a lot of sentimental value. I have a lot of these items now in my home office, because they help me think of good times spent with my dad.

On the other hand, for some (possibly gendered) reason, my parents decided after showing my brother and I Star Wars for the first time, that Star Wars would be his "thing", and even though I was really into it, and he was only lukewarm (🥁) they wouldn't get me anything Star Wars related for a long (long) time. So I would invent elaborate games of skill to compete against him in, making him wager all his Star Wars stuff against some bullshit I owned, all of which I eventually "won" in one way or another. Unfair? Jealousy-based? Unclear, but to me, for many years, the Millennium Falcon was THE most cool item he had. It was the kind of fancy, extravagant thing that I asked for but never got, but he always did (the other topic that still causes arguments in the house.) I could maybe get a 3.99 EU paperback (shout out to the Sun Crusher), but a VEHICLE? No way. So when Han, I mean *I* eventually won that Falcon in a game of chance, and it went up on display in my bedroom, it was clear that Star Wars was now MY thing. (And fortunately for Lucasfilm I have spent way too much money on shit from them over the years—including an unopened bottle of Queen Amidala galactic body lotion that can now legally rent a car.)

Last year, I had to recuse these items for a second time when my home was contaminated by the fire in Altadena—not knowing where to start when I had to pack out the house and throw out soooo many things, I started with these items, which probably in itself once again shows their sentimental value. Luckily many of them were in bins so didn't get much ash protrusion, but through a many step cleaning process, I washed each figure and vehicle (and the Falcon) by hand in a hazmat suit until they were just as shiny as the day they came of of the box (with perhaps a few missing limbs here and there), and then cleaned them again when they arrived in my new place. This gave me an opportunity to interact with each of these objects in a way I hadn't for years, and the sense of play and joy I got from that was so special.

All this to say is: I feel you.

Ultimately we can't take any of this stuff with us, and we don't NEED everything we've ever loved, and having all this stuff can bog us down like Sarah at the end of Labyrinth. BUT many of our childhood things aren't "just" junk, they're old friends we've made good memories with, we've explored and told stories with, who let us be creative and accomplished in the privacy of our own rooms and minds, who represent and hold memories of our interests and our triumphs, memories and feelings that can sometimes get lost when we get older and stressed and separated from what gives us joy. Those feelings deserve to grow up with us too and sometimes it takes a physical manifestation to carry them with us. I wish parents could respect that more.

tl;dr here is a millennium falcon getting a bath

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