My name is Cindy and I’m an Archivist.

I can’t help it. I keep ticket stubs and programs. I keep birthday cards and Mothers’ Day cards and Christmas cards. I keep thank-you notes, invitations, and announcements. And I keep the drawings and cards from the grands. If you sent it to me, I still have it. I make a box every year in January and put the stuff from the preceding year in it and put it on the shelves in my closet.

Yes, it’s a really big closet.

I have boxes in there going back to my wedding to Mike. Anything earlier than that is in the attic.

But that’s just the tip of my memorabilia iceberg.

In addition to being a sentimental hoarder, I am also a photographer. That means I have photos going back to high school–maybe earlier since I got my first camera (a Brownie) in grade school. And the journals going back to 1964 and that memorable Monkees concert.

It’s a lot.

But it all pales in comparison to the drawer o’discs that I opened last week.

In a chest, in the living room, under the TV. There they were–at least a hundred DVDs and CDs documenting every photo, video and piece of music created by me, Scott or our kids in the last 30 years.

I hear your protestations! We haven’t had discs that long. What about VHS? Cassette tapes? 8 tracks? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We had those, millions of them. But along the way, I transferred them to discs because of my compulsive need to keep records (NO, not those kind of records, although we had hundreds of them, too. But I digress.)

So anyway, I began the seemingly never-ending task of “ripping” discs, transferring them to digital files I can store in the computer, external hard drives and the cloud. For posterity. Cause I’m pretty sure my posterity will want them.

And since I am The Tech Mom, I have tools, and mad skills, and software programs that magically change DVDs to MP4s (playable on a computer) and CDs to MP3s (playable on a computer.) So I got busy.

That’s when it hit me! The crying, the laughing, more crying, more laughing. It was an emotional roller coaster. There they were: my parents, Scott, Robin, my siblings, my friends, the kids when they were little, their faces, their voices. All the people I love, living and dead. Right there in front of me just daring me to keep my shit together.

I didn’t.

I could only do 10 at a time. Partly because it takes a while to rip a disc, but partly because I would have to step away from such an emotional rabbit hole. It was exhausting.

I would watch HGTV in between, as a palate cleanser.

Then I would go back and watch the kids on Youth Sunday or the family at Easter 1997 or me and Scott singing at the church Valentines banquet. Or my Mom’s memorial video. That one nearly killed me.

I know, I could have just set myself on fire. It might have been less painful. But unearthing the treasures from the year Noah was born, or all the trips we took, seeing everyone from church at Christmas in Bethlehem, or the photos from my dad’s 80th birthday was more than worth it.

When Scott and I had Dallas Media Center, our motto was We Save Your Life. Turned out I saved my own. And now I’m saving it again for the next generation, whether they want it or not.

But I think they might. Molly called the other day and asked some questions about my school years timeline. She told me to document everything so it won’t be lost. Then Sarah called asking me if I had any of the music from Robin’s life. Of course I do.

So it’s starting. And as they get older, they’ll want more. And I’ll have it.

Coincidentally, today is the 20th anniversary of Robin’s death. In case you haven’t been paying attention, she is Erin and Sarah’s mom, Scott’s ex and my dear friend. The girls call it Mom’s Day. And I am happy that I found the video of Robin’s memorial service, the music I sang for her that day, plus dozens more memories of her over the years, including their early family albums when the girls were born. These are all waiting for Erin and Sarah.

I am an archivist. And I think I’m okay with that.

If only someone will hand me a tissue. I’ve just watched that film of Christmas 1957.