Object-ives #52: I Lost the One Thing I Always Said I’d Save in a Fire

Without my photo albums, I’ll have to remember on my own

The author at 16—a photo of a photo from a friend’s album

All through high school, college, and my early twenties, I made intricate photo albums that showcased my life in a way that wasn’t reflected in my mom’s family albums. My friends and I snapped candid shots of each other: at school, at parties, at Baskin-Robbins. I sent away the disposable cameras in paper envelopes, and when the prints arrived, I pasted them in albums, carefully labeling each photo, giving each page a block-lettered title, often including items like concert tickets or magazine cut-outs.

When asked what items I would save in a fire, I always said my photo albums. I knew from a young age that I wanted to be a writer, so I had a strong urge to document my life. I wanted to remember what I was doing, what I was wearing, who I was with. I knew one day I’d get old and forgetful, and I’d need a concrete way to remember the details of my youth.

When digital photos became the norm, I stopped making physical photo albums, but I lugged my albums with me everywhere. Took them to New Orleans after college and to DC after that. When my boyfriend and I decided to move cross-country, I hauled the box of albums to Seattle, where we put it directly into a storage closet. When we moved to Minneapolis a year later the box went, again, directly into storage. Or so I thought.

After Minneapolis, we moved to Maryland, and, one day, I went looking for my photo albums. I was writing a young adult novel, and I wanted some inspiration from my high school years.

But the photo albums were nowhere to be found. I tore through all the boxes in our storage unit, but they weren’t there.

I refused to panic. They’d turn up eventually. Or so I thought.

Some months later, I was on Facebook and noticed there was a hidden section of messages: a place for messages from people I wasn’t Facebook friends with. I started scrolling through years of messages, mostly spam.

But then there was a message that stopped my heart. It went something like this:

Hi Eva. This is Laura from ABC Moving Company in Seattle, Washington. I found a box at our warehouse that must have fallen out of one of our trucks. The box was partially open, and I could see it contained photo albums. I figured whoever they belonged to would probably want them back, so I hope you don’t mind that I looked through the box and figured out your name. I can keep the box here for you for a few weeks. Or, if you let me know your address, I can ship it to you.

“Oh my god!” I shrieked. “Oh my god, my photo albums!” I was filled with a rush of adrenaline that quickly turned to dread when I looked at when the message was dated: almost two years ago.

“Shit, shit, shit!” I messaged Laura back, wondering why the heck she’d contacted me on Facebook. Didn’t the moving company have my contact info? Except, no, they didn’t. When we were living in Seattle, my husband had been my boyfriend, and we’d had different last names. It was his job, anyway, that had arranged for the moving company.

Laura’s reply came, and it was what I had feared: When she didn’t hear back from me, they’d gotten rid of the box.

I messaged her back something like, “Got rid of…as in you actually threw it away???” I couldn’t fathom it. I simply couldn’t comprehend that someone could take my photo albums—all those years of hard work and precious memories—and toss them into a dumpster.

How could the movers have been so careless? (But why had I not packed my treasured albums in the car, safe with me, on our drive to Minneapolis?!) Equally frustrating was the fact that I could have gotten the box back had I only checked my weird Facebook messages. Most depressing of all: My photo albums were truly gone forever. Now I would have to rely on my memory alone to recall the specifics of my youth.

I’ve lost other things I really loved: earrings, sweaters, a favorite lunchbox. But losing my photo albums brought on a sorrow I’d never felt about any other material object. It felt like losing a piece of myself. I had an ache in my heart for months. Even a year afterward, when I thought about the lost photo albums, pain settled in my chest.

When my high school and college friends heard what happened, they scanned their old photos and emailed them to me. Some were photos of my teenage self I’d never even seen. Their efforts didn’t make up for the lost photo albums, but it helped. And, like all loss, time made it easier to bear.

The Facebook message happened about ten years ago. I still think about the photo albums, but much less often. When I do, I no longer feel sorrow. I think, Gosh, it sucks I’ll never be able to show my daughters my prom pictures, but…oh well. Because, in the end, even our favorite things are just things. Turns out I still have the memories, after all; I can even conjure up images in my mind of some of my favorite pictures from those lost albums. Plus, I’ve taken a lot of great photos since then. The loss just doesn’t feel as bad as it did initially.

You know what else? I’ve started making physical photo albums again. They live on a shelf in my living room, so I can keep a close eye on them. But if there’s a fire, I’ll prioritize saving my kids. And my cats.

Eva Langston received her MFA from the University of New Orleans and is represented by Ali Lake of O’Connor Literary. She is a writing instructor and the creator/host of the podcast The Long Road to Publishing, which was recently named one of the best podcasts about the writing business. Eva lives in Maryland with her husband and two children, and her writing resources newsletter on Substack has over 7,000 followers.

Object-ives features flash nonfiction essays of 500-999 words on the possessions we can’t stop thinking about.

Recommended reading on possessions:

“I’ve been selling my Mum’s belongings.” by Charlie Gill, Life Before Plastic

“Things That Are Better Secondhand” by Erika Veurink, Long Live

“The Le Creuset dutch oven” by David Strong

“living inside our bags” by chaipadbaby2003, please employ me

“Wanted: Lost T-Shirt, Perfect Green” by Heidi Fettig Parton, Essay Daily

“Winter Coat” by Isaac Amend, Brevity