the notes i threw out from my middle school days were important at the time because it was our innocent way of flirting with a girl that you liked.   However, when i was reading a few of them i realized that they were basically just garbage chat completely devoid of substance at all.  I couldn't even tell what it was that the girl was talking about and it was just silly.   They were all so repetitive that it was actually really easy to let those go.  

Getting rid of the birthday cards I suppose is a bit heartless.  One that i did keep had a really long and well thought out message from Grandma and she concluded her part with "I'll leave some space for Grandpa to write something" .... the rest of the card was blank because Grandpa couldn't be asked to do it.  haha!