Once it never occurred to me that the remnants of my past could have any value beyond my childhood memories. Like my Barbie stuff, long forgotten and left behind in my mother's house until the day she decided to move, cleaned out her closets and insisted I take it all. I tossed the whole lot into a box and shoved it into the corner of my own closet. A few years later, when I thought my two girls were old enough, I bought them two new Barbies, clad in neon orange bikinis, and dragged the box from its hiding place.

"And these were my Barbie clothes," I told them proudly.

They weren't impressed.

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