Decluttering Trophies

I was decluttering my box of sports trophies and as I took out trophy after trophy, I noticed how many silver ones there were. It reminded me of the many times that I didn't win.

A couple of weeks later, I was listening to a podcast where they were talking about gold shoes and gold pens. The two speakers love gold. I had an aha moment hearing this. They are raving about the gold pen from the podcaster's stationary store, and I had bought the silver pen. I also prefer silver jewelry to gold.

This made me wonder, did I love silver before the runner-up results or did I learn to love silver by being runner-up so often?

It turns out that my championship trophies were at the bottom of the box, understandably because they are bigger (and heavier) but I definitely remember being runner-up or third more than I remember winning. I wonder if this is because I thought and analyzed the losses afterwards more than the wins or that I obviously lost a lot more times than I won. We don't have trophies when we don't make a final or podium.

I remember as a young teenager having a button that said "I'm no. 3, I don't try very hard". It was similar to this one but the button was white.

I don't think I actually wore it. The best track athlete in my town wore one. I used to think it was quite funny because she won everything. She was a natural and amazing runner and jumper so it may have been true that she didn't try very hard. Maybe she was number 3 provincially but in our town, she was by far the best.

At the same time, I remember having a t-shirt that said "almost perfect" with the R backwards.

It was the t-shirt I wore at the Franco-Ontarien All-Ontario Championships. I can still picture myself wearing that shirt on television when my race was part of the newscast. Luckily they showed the beginning of the 400m so we didn't see that I was 6th at the finish line. One of my greatest sports accomplishments (in my mind) was at that meet. I qualified to attend All-Ontario for the 400m (the longest distance we raced in my town to qualify) so we didn't have anyone from my region competing in the 800m so they added me to the race (or they added the 800m to the competition). I was 6th in the 400m but won a silver medal in the 800m! In track and field, we normally got ribbons so getting a medal at this championship (at a podium I believe) was very special.

I don't have any photos from that meet but I did get my photo taken when I got home.

Telling myself that I didn't try very hard or that I was almost perfect maybe took the sting out of losing or I just didn't care about winning as much as my fellow competitors. I definitely cared about moving on, so if two competitors qualified for the next meet, I would be at least second. If three qualified, I often was third. So sometimes, I was second locally, then second regionally and second again to qualify for All-Ontario. Maybe I tried just hard enough to move on or had a fear of success.

Looking back at results, it does amaze me to see this pattern. Maybe playing or racing was more important to me at that time. Even now looking at my box of trophies, I wonder why I kept them all these years. There are special ones worth keeping but was the quantity also important then?

I kept all my report cards and all the trophies, certificates and adjudicator sheets from the music festivals, so I guess it's not surprising that I kept my sports trophies - although they take up a lot more space.

Another reason I kept them was that it reminded me of a happier time when I used to play sports competitively. After moving away, I realized how lucky I was to grow up in a small town in Northern Ontario where learning sports was affordable and the competition wasn't too deep so we would travel to other towns for competitions. The number of trophies, ribbons and medals reminded me of all the sports I played and all the tournaments and meets I competed in.

When I look back at my early sports days, getting to travel to meets and tournaments I qualified for by winning locally or regionally are my fondest and most memorable moments. Because I didn't win awards at the more prestigious events and don't have many photos, the trophies were the proof or mementos that helped me remember.

When choosing whether to keep or let go of a trophy, there are a few things that we can reflect on:

1 - Are you proud of the accomplishment(s) and want to display it (them)?
2 - Do they inspire you?
3 - Do they remind you of memorable moments?
4 - Would you be as happy with a photo to remind you instead of the physical trophy?
5 - Are they useful? My sister sent me a video showing me her husband's golf trophies. I was inspired to see "trophies" being used as bookends, filing systems or coin holders. I asked her to send me photos to share.

I think these trophies and medals used to give me a sense of accomplishment. I have probably been ready to let them go for quite a while now, but didn't think they would be useful to the organizations that I donate household items to so they have sat in a box.

I found an organization, Repeat Champions, in Hamilton that refurbish and donate trophies.

"Trophies are refurbished, recycling as much as 90% of the parts and donated to groups and organizations within our community and abroad, which do not have the resources to purchase them on their own. "

My Revive55 Project along with finding this organization have given me the incentive I needed to finally declutter my trophies.