My father had a pack-rate gene that, try as I might to dodge, it seems I've inherited. Things that should have been disposed of long ago have followed me from place to place, storage area to storage area. Occasionally over the years I would resolve to thin out things that didn't see the light of day but were kept because of sentimental value, or because they were family items, or oddly enough, because they caused pain in the past and it was somehow important that that pain be remembered, if only occasionally.
So things would be handled, reviewed, restacked, reboxed, refiled, reordered and ultimately returned to storage areas. It might be clothes, paperwork, tools, furniture, knick-knacks or assorted detritus that I wasn't even sure what it was, but it was part of something at one time that a family member had kept.
Now, reading the above it seems completely silly to hold on to such things. In bins and drawers and closets. But turning loose of them has been even harder. I've told myself a time would come when I could part with them but it never seemed to come. Until now.
In the last month or so I've started shredding old paperwork. Tax returns beyond the statute of limitations that my accountant/attorney says are ripe for pitching. This is freeing up space in my storage area and significantly reducing the flammability of my home. Historically I would fail at accomplishing this only in part because I didn't have a shredder. That would have been easy to remedy. No, I would fail because I would get stuck looking at the papers, trying to recall (or perhaps worse, recalling and reliving) the time they represented. In this case my recent shredding encompassed a year that I:
- Made more money as a self-employed person than I had before or have since
- Spent a goodly sum on a life coach for the one an only time in my life.
- Assumed responsibility for my father's affairs after he had a heart attack and went into a nursing home
- Lived two weeks in a model home in anticipation of buying it. I didn't because I felt I needed to be able to get to my father more quickly than if I moved.
- Spent the night in a hotel room with my brother to save money when we went to my Aunt's funeral in Washington, DC (a very bad decision - the hotel room, not going to the funeral)
- Went to funeral of the mother of my best friend from high school.
- Visited a dear friend in Kansas City who, with his wife (several years deceased) had served as my in loco parentis when I moved from southern Indiana to Chicago decades before. Shortly after my visit he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and died within a few months.
- Went to the funeral of my best Chicago friend's father.
And there were all kinds of things that, in looking at the paperwork, receipts, notes and statements, I didn't recall at all. Who were the people I had penciled in my Day-Timer for lunches? What were all these payments for? Why did fly to Baltimore - it said to meet with the ABA, but why?
My memory has never been perfect. I don't remember lots of things that I think other people do. But in looking at this year, 15 years back, there seems to be such a sadness running through it. I didn't see it at the time I suspect, but that thread of mortality, all those losses, they seem to have been a precursor to the future where there were even more.
- These days I make probably 25% of what I made at that high point. The difference is that now I don't care. Then it was much more important.
- My life is in many ways what the life coach predicted based on all the tests, conversations and intuition she brought to bear. It is a good life and the money was well spent.
- My father's care and affairs were my job for four years. It came to an end when he died and I was left with no responsibilities and no need to stay where I was.
- The year after my father died I went back to consider that house I'd lived in. I didn't buy it but it ultimately led me to the one I did, which is a better choice in many ways although I paid the price of not getting the land I wanted.
- My brother died a few years ago. I was never able to understand him, nor he me.
- We've buried my high school friend's father and she's had a sister die as well.
- After the friend in Kansas City died it was the end of an era. He and his wife were the hub from which so many connections were made, without them the connections weakened and frayed.
- The Chicago friend whose father died is now dead as well.
Everyone loses people in their life. Everyone has good things and bad things happen. Everyone has things they take pride in and things they regret. Keeping paper around for decades to prove it makes no sense to me any more. The shredding continues and somehow not remembering everything is probably a good thing.
