Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My husband and I are trying to take photos out of albums and sort through, get rid of photos that won't mean anything to our kids, and cull out the views of mountains, waterfalls, etc. It's a huge undertaking, and it's going to take a lot of hours. Also, though the plastic containers said each would hold 1600 photos, no way, Jose. I'll have to buy more. My husband has been more disturbed by this process than I am. He slept badly the first night we'd worked on the project. I'm letting go, knowing how little of these family documents will be interesting to my kids and grandkids. And that's okay. Look ahead, not back, I figure. The photos won't tell the story, and neither will any other documents. We will be a mystery, as my parents are to me, and their story about us will change as they age, as my story about my family has filled out, become more complicated and yet still incomplete. I added to my parents' story by asking relatives close to them after they were dead. But my parents were all about the future, and kept no mementos of the past. They were both so poor as kids that there really weren't mementos, and when their parents died they inherited little, and didn't want much of that. They were all about the new. I'm more historically minded, but I'm not certain my kids care. And that is fine with me. I'm complicated, mysterious, even to myself, and looking back on other decades of my life, I barely recognize myself. I couldn't explain myself if they asked!