learning to laugh at myself on an extreme time delay

this morning i was going through the giant storage bins in my basement that have been full of the same crap since i moved in when i was 19, in anticipation of taking out a few things for my (hopefully soon-to-be-opened) new etsy store. while doing so, i found so many things that ran the gamut from hilarious to pathetic (they were mostly a little of both) from my teenage years. they are mostly of the too-cool-for-you variety that we were all so fond of during those years from 14-17. yes i was that girl, the one that always had some ridiculous political crap to spew and something to sign you up for or sell you. i'm super glad i mostly outgrew that stage. anyway...

among the awesome/hilarious items:

• copies of the maestro distro, from which a few friends and i used to sell things like homemade (and custom) soaps, sugar scrubs, solid perfumes, glitter dinosaur crayons, t-shirts with obscene-ish super radical feminist slogans, toothbrush bracelets (i soooo wish i still had mine), cd's and t-shirts for my husband's first band (tyra banks naked), and assorted zines from us and our friends. i still have my "DIY or die!" patch that came with chrissy's zine hanging on my fridge!
• plaster of paris and mexican red clay
• a bunch of holographic stickers
• old kid's books
• blank trucker hats and purple basketball jerseys
• track jackets

among the pathetic/embarrassing items:

• the actual zines themselves. they are beautiful and collage-like but filled with mostly awful writing and terrible poetry, along with recipes for things like eggless pasta because i was in a really pretentious vegan stage of my life. there are also ads for like 6 or 7 places that don't even exist anymore. i suppose this was like 10 years ago but damn.
  
• a book full of old poetry that i wrote. it is all terrible and melodramatic and i feel like an asshole for ever having produced it.
  
• notes from old boyfriends and my husband before we were married
• mortifying pictures or me either acting like a hipster or being really fat (though there were also some of my horse from when i was really little, and the boardwalk in Atlantic City with snow on it). mostly they just showcased my bad haircuts/random haircolors and questionable fashion choices
  
• thongs with my husband's band's name on them. we used to sell them along with other merch at his shows. people actually bought them.
  

aside from these things, i did actually find some adorable vintage clothes to put up on the etsy store. they include things that i would never part with if i still had a job and therefore money, or actually fit into them. i also found a lot of crafty-type things that made me super happy. on the awful side, my basement is full of jumpy spiders (also known as cave crickets) and every time i go down there during the summer i have to fling the door open first and then back up super quick so they don't jump on my face and make me have a heart attack. they like to stay on the back of the door, i think just for spite and possibly also vengeance. anyway i plan to avoid the basement for as long as i possibly can now.