Prompt
With each passing year, you accumulate more stuff. Your new holiday gifts have been put out, but now is the perfect time to make some extra space and purge your old belongings. Donation centers are bustling but there’s never a bad time to give to the needy. Going through your belongings, you may find any number of things. Something you thought was lost? Or just a bad case of nostalgia? Now is a good time to reflect on what is important to you—and maybe actually find some things you can part with.
(WC: 584)
The holiday season had come and gone once more and with the leaving of Santa Claus and the last of the old year came the need to return all of her decorations back to their appropriate homes.
With it being only her second year spending Christmas in Destiny City, the young woman had gone all out this year, spending more money than she probably should have spent at various stores - Target and Walmart included - getting various lights and decor to fill both her house and her yard with. She hadn't gotten around to bothering last year, choosing to work the duration of the season with the opportunity of overtime, but this year she'd decided to relax a bit and enjoy the season herself...even if it meant doing it alone.
The only problem with decorating alone was that when it came time to remove decorations, she was also forced to doing it alone. Unstringing lights wasn't nearly as hard as she imagined, nor was taking down the lit up Santa and reindeer that were scattered across the front lawn. Wreaths and jingle bells found their homes in new boxes but as far as storage went...
Well, she hadn't thought everything through just yet.
Attic space seemed the most logical of places to put it all, which meant having to go through the various boxes upon boxes that she'd practically abandoned upon moving in to the older house.
As the pull-down ladder was dropped, Jules stared at the boxes cluttering around the area by her feet. Sure, she'd gone a little overboard with the purchases but... well... surely she'd find room, right?
The first boxes in the attic to delve into were basic, run of the mill nostalgia trips. School year books that she didn't have the heart to throw away, letters from her mother that she'd kept, the older woman sending her one nearly every week while she was away in college. Books and mementos from her estranged father - quirky little styles that didn't quite fit the decor of her current abode.
It was pleasant, honestly, and the young nurse found herself distracted for nearly a good hour, up until she found the one box she probably shouldn't have even bothered bringing with her on the move.
When the flap was pulled back, Jules immediately knew she shouldn't have opened it. Still, curiosity getting the better of her, the flap was creased down and out came the first photobook - a scrapbook her mother had made for what was supposed to be the happiest day of her life. Perhaps it still could be considered the happiest moment she'd recall, despite the fallout afterwards. A blonde woman with sparkling blue eyes that seemed to light up in every picture, attached to a tall, dark haired man who seemed to host enough confidence for the both of them.
Her Jack.
Well, he wasn't her Jack any longer.
The box held other things in memory of the relationship that had ended painfully; why Jules had bothered to keep the entire thing and tote it around with her to her new home, her new future, still mystified even her. Was there a point, burdening herself with dark memories, to remind herself of what had been? What to avoid in the future?
Pulling out one of university hoodies had her scowling, the thought only bringing one thing to mind: purging.
Now was a good a time as ever to start some spring cleaning and she was going to start with this.
