Do You Know Where Your Yearbooks Are?

It’s the year 2020. Do you know where your yearbooks are?

I’ve been thinking about this since I cleaned out my mother’s garage last summer. There they were, staring me in the face again: St. George’s High School Green Dragon Review 1981 through 1985.

Did I put them back in the box they came out of and put them back in storage?

YES.

Did I look through them and reminisce about the “good old days”?

HELL NO! I hated every minute of High School.

So why am I keeping my year books?

The truth is, I HAVE NO IDEA!

As I mentioned, it has been bothering me for about a year now, and during that time I have asked some friends if they know where their yearbooks are.  Here are some of their responses:

“On my living room bookshelves”.  As an organizer my mind went to: REALLY? Do you look at them? When asked, she admitted she does not.

“I have no idea”.  This response made much more sense to me.

“In a box somewhere. I’m not sure where since we moved”.  YUP, that sounds about right.

Like me, not one person had gotten rid of them and it made me wonder even more WHY NOT?

One friend said “I’m sentimental. It’s fun to take them out and look at them every once in awhile.”

Fair enough.

This is my graduating class picture. I am still close friends with exactly 3 of those people in real life. Of course, with social media I can be in contact with everyone I want to so I am still in touch with a few more. Horrifying pictures like these come back into circulation…what other reminders do I need?  What am I holding on to?

For some, their yearbooks may hold wonderful memories of their glory days, great GPA or accomplishments. Life only gets harder after school, so I understand wanting to hold on to that for awhile. For me, there was none of that. I got through high school with good grades and bad self-esteem.

The thing is the yearbooks are not what’s important - it’s the memories. If it were the books, we’d be looking through the pages for gratification more often. The books may even remind us of things we’d rather forget (like bad haircuts & hilarious outfits) while our memories can be more selective.

I honestly forgot my yearbooks were even there until I had to do a clean-up BUT, I remember what I choose to about school.

If you are keeping yours, please share your reasons…and if you can’t think of any, please join me in bidding them a fond farewell.