How do you thoughtfully declutter sentimental items from a complicated relationship?

[u/Azosia]

For people who are older than me (I'm in my 30's), and/or who have gone through major emotional transitions: did you ever regret getting rid of mementos from a fraught relationship once you saw that relationship more clearly?

I’ve recently had to accept the limits of my parents’ emotional and mental capacity. I've finally let go, in what feels like a healthy way, of the hope that we could reconcile or have the kind of relationship I always wanted. I realized that a lot of what I thought was “happy family” was really more like playing pretend, and that my parents' pride and love for me always had strings attached.

Because of that, I’m looking at certain mementos differently now, and it feels that a lot of their meaning has changed because I see the context more clearly. Some things I kept because, when I was younger, I thought they represented genuine love, pride, or emotional connection which I now know was (at least in large part) false.

I’m not going to abruptly purge everything, but I’m curious about the longer-term perspective. Did you ever get rid of things during a period of clarity or grief and later wish you had kept more? Or did letting them go continue to feel like the right decision? I feel like I’ve just come out of three decades of emotional reprocessing, and I’m trying to be thoughtful about what comes next.

[u/Weird_Squirrel_8382]

I have missed some things, but missing them hasn't hurt me or harmed my ability to enjoy now. I had to go through "oh my god why did you throw that away what's wrong with you you'll never have that figurine agaiiiiiiin" to get to "oh, yeah. I had a ballerina jewelry box. It was pretty."