When Letting Go Isn’t the Answer

Back in February, the SS United States… a grand old ship that once carried stories, purpose, and pride… was towed out of Philadelphia, headed for Florida. I watched her go, amazed by the little tug boat that guided her there. She will be sunk just off the Florida panhandle and turned into an artificial reef, and a scuba diver’s mecca.

They call it a new beginning. I can’t help but see it as an ending. I know the practical reasons make sense, but still, something in me aches. A ship like that once represented craftsmanship, progress, human hands, and heart. Instead of standing tall in a port as a living memory, she’ll disappear beneath the waves.

Captain Mike Vinik’s tugboat, the Vinik No. 6, guiding the SS United States to Florida. This picture shows them just off Cape Hatteras. (Photo by Mike Vinik)

It made me think about how quick we are to let go of the things that built us. The old buildings, the corner diners, the movie houses… I remember the Colonial Theater, a childhood destination… taken down after years of neglect. It was magnificent, and I remember watching “The Snowball Express” there! I can still hear my Aunt Erlene giggling through the whole movie. Even the personal relics that once meant something to us, we are quick to “downsize, get rid of stuff, live minimally.” We call it progress, but sometimes I wonder if we’re neglecting what gives life its texture in the process.

Meanwhile, I’m the kind of person who keeps things. The sweater I wore skiing when I was five…framed now beside a photo of me wearing it. Ticket stubs from past events, the clay pen holder my son made in 4th grade, the postcards from small towns, just to remember I was there. Maybe that’s why the story of that ship hit me so hard, because while the world seems to sink its history, I can’t stop trying to save mine.

A few months ago, my friend Lori from the old neighborhood showed up at book club with something bundled in her hands. “I think this is yours,” she said. Inside was the green and red poncho my mom knitted for me when I was five. I have no idea how it ended up at her house, but somehow, through moves and marriages and decades, it survived.

I still have the picture of me wearing that poncho over a yellow dress, white knee socks, holding our little pup in my arms, standing in front of our family home. That photo has been tucked in a drawer for years, a small portal to my childhood. So when Lori handed me the real thing, it felt like time folded in half. I slipped it over my head, barely making it past my shoulders, and we all laughed. It was too small, of course, but the feeling was enormous.

That’s the thing about nostalgia: people often mistake it for living in the past, when really it’s just holding a thread that connects who we were to who we’ve become. When I see that poncho, I don’t want to go back to being five. I want to remember that once, someone loved me enough to make something by hand, and that I’m still that same person, still warmed by the care of others.

It wasn’t the first time my mom’s knitting found its way back into my life. One Christmas in the 1970s, she decided our family should look like we’d just stepped off the slopes of Vail, so she made matching red ski sweaters for all of us. I still have that photo, and it makes me laugh out loud: five of us lined up in front of the fireplace, all wearing identical sweaters with white stripes across the chest.

And yes — I still have mine. Of course I do.

When I pulled it out recently, I laid that old photo on top of it, just to see them side by side… the sweater and the memory, reunited after all these years. It’s funny how a simple thing, like a piece of yarn, can carry an entire era. You hold it in your hands, and it’s not just wool anymore. It’s a family Christmas, a mother’s patience, a season of life that once was. (I’m also just realizing that I have those German steins on the mantel behind us, sitting proudly on bookshelves in my music room.)

There’s also the little musical figurine that’s followed me everywhere since I was a kid… a small ceramic boy and girl huddled together under an umbrella. You wind it up and it plays Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head. I’m holding it in an old photo, smiling in front of our house on Christmas morning. I took that figurine to college, and it’s lived in every home I’ve had since. It still sits on my dresser today, fifty years later.

The song plays slower now, but every note still makes me smile. It’s not just a music box; it’s proof that I’ve carried joy with me, even through the chapters that didn’t go as planned.

Sometimes I think nostalgia gets a bad rap. There’s this idea that people who hold on to things, or memories, are stuck in the past; that keeping an old sweater or a chipped figurine means you can’t move forward. I’ve read those essays that call nostalgia a kind of sickness, a longing for a world that doesn’t exist anymore. But I don’t buy it.

Because here’s the truth: nostalgia only keeps you stuck if you refuse to grow around it. For me, it’s never been about staying in the past. It’s about carrying it forward. That little music box on my shelf? I don’t wind it up to go back. I wind it up to remember how much joy a simple tune once brought me, and to remind myself that joy still exists if I look for it.

People who dismiss nostalgia forget that our past isn’t meant to be left behind; it’s meant to be integrated. Every small thing we’ve loved… a sweater, a sound, a photograph… becomes part of the scaffolding that holds up who we are today.

So yes, I save things. But not to live in yesterday. I save them because they keep me rooted while I grow, the same way old buildings and ships once anchored us to our collective story before we decided they weren’t worth saving.

When I was a teenager, we had a jukebox in our basement… a big, gleaming piece of magic! When it finally came time to say goodbye to it, I couldn’t part with everything at once, so I saved the stack of records inside. Nooo, I don’t still have them, but I kept the song titles scribbled on a notepad… and years later, I built a playlist of every one of them. Now, whenever those songs play, I’m back in that basement for just a moment, with the glow of colored lights, and my dad belting out “Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime” by Dean Martin.

There’s one last sweater that hangs on my wall… cream with red, blue, and black stripes. I wore it the winter I first learned to ski, maybe five years old, smiling in front of a ski lodge. My mom saved the sweater, and now I’ve framed it with that photo, evidence of a beginning, a learned skill that I still enjoy to this day. It makes me happy every time I walk by, as if that fearless little girl and I still share the same heartbeat.

Have I saved everything? Not even close. I’ve had my purges… the days when I needed to breathe, to clear the space around me so my mind could rest. I’ve learned that holding on can be beautiful, but so can letting go. The key is choosing carefully… keeping what carries meaning, releasing what doesn’t. And yes, I’ve let go of things I wish I’d kept, but maybe that’s part of the lesson too. It just makes me love what remains a little more.

I think of the SS United States again… the one they’re going to sink to make a reef. I wonder if we ever stop to realize how much of ourselves we’re willing to lose in the name of progress. I don’t believe everything can or should be preserved, but I do believe that what we keep and the things we hold onto tell our story. Whether it’s a ship, a sweater, or a small porcelain figurine that plays Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head, each carries a chapter of who we’ve been and what we’ve loved.

So, maybe this is my quiet rebellion against letting things slip away too easily. My way of saying the past still has something to teach us… about craftsmanship, care, and connection.

As November begins, I find myself grateful for every tangible thread that ties me back to where I started. These aren’t relics. They’re reminders. And maybe that’s what nostalgia really is… not an anchor, but a compass pointing us home.

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Hi, I’m Marjorie.

I’m a photographer, writer, and lifelong collector of stories — the kind you find tucked inside small towns, old buildings, and the things we choose to keep. I love uncovering the stories, nostalgia, and beauty hidden along back roads and Main Streets.

Through Destination Main Street and The Bungalow Diaries, I share the beauty of nostalgia, the joy of travel, and the art of noticing what’s worth preserving.

I’m so glad you stopped by. I hope you’ll linger a while, explore a few more stories, and find a little inspiration to slow down and remember what matters most.