Have you ever moved before? Better yet, had you ever moved and been separated from the rest of your family for a while as you started a new job but also got your affairs in order before you hauled your whole family to the new city?

After several months of living in two cities and traveling back and forth, you were finally under the same roof with all your belongings. Now, the challenge was to find that balance again and locate all the proper places in the new house for all your old stuff.

In our last big move, we didn't throw a lot away going into the move, and we came across things that the movers should have never had to shove in a box. "Why did we move this?" was said more than once. My wife looked at the moving manifest and informed me that we had over twice as much junk as our last move six years prior. Years before meeting my wife, you could fit EVERYTHING I owned in the back of a pickup truck. Now, we filled up a Mayflower truck. A family of four could collect a lot of stuff.

Honestly, I could still fit the things that were mine and mine alone in the back of a pickup truck. If my wife had kicked me out, I wouldn't have needed more than a 500-square-foot apartment. Just enough space for my junk and whatever hobbies I picked up in my single life that I would have had to add to some dating app bio. "I love cooking, writing, making home brew beer, and crying myself to sleep every night wishing I was still married."

The thought of my hypothetical single life scares the hell out of me, so I decided to stick with the woman I fell in love with 25+ years ago. I am still pretty fond of her and our life together. However, she has tons more than I do. She and the kids were the other ninety-nine percent of that Mayflower moving truck!

As we separated the items and located where they belonged in the new home, I realized that many of my things that had moved with us all those years were not expensive material belongings. They wouldn't have impressed you with their expense, and on the surface, you wouldn't have seen their worth. They were memories. Boxes and boxes of memories that would all fit into the back of my 65 Chevy truck. A truck that was basically memories on wheels. Bessie (her name) is not worth as much as her showroom cousins, but she looks pretty from about twenty yards away, and my wife secretly hated how she took up precious space in the garage that she, my wife, could have used for more stuff! (Don't worry; I wasn't about to do a George Carlin bit about "stuff.")

As I started to sort through my things and organize my collections of memories, I came across a stack of things I had forgotten I had kept all those years: thank you cards.

Anytime anyone had ever given me a thank you card, I kept it. From small ones with simple signatures to long ones from people who wanted to share their feelings and how I might have made a difference in their lives. As I thumbed through the collection (basically procrastinating and preventing me from putting anything away), I started to reflect upon my life's work as a human being. I was reminded of how certain people felt about me, what I might have done for them, and many other stories I had forgotten over the years. You sometimes forget about the difference you have made when you're focused on tomorrow's potential. These letters brought back memories and refilled my internal and emotional tanks. A few simple words could make all the difference, even twenty years after they were initially written.

#Tryharder to live a life worth thanking. Be a person worthy of thank you cards. Make sure your actions are worth notice by others and for all the right reasons. Do not do things in hopes of being thanked and noticed, but rather hold yourself accountable by being a good person. Do right by the world, and the world will thank you in many ways. Give thanks to those who have moved you, and allow others to praise you for helping them.

My most treasured material possessions are not items hung on a wall or belts clasped around my waist; they sit in a cardboard box in my attic collecting dust. They were mine and mine alone, and I was very thankful for them.