When I woke up, I had a general idea of how my day would go, and what I wanted to accomplish. I had some paperwork to do, which I expected would take me maybe 15 minutes. I never got past the paperwork; it swallowed my day.
Once I got the morning chores done, I set out to find some particular paperwork. Although I'm disorganized in many facets of my life, when it comes to paper I am surprisingly organized. My filing is relatively up to date, files are labeled and lined up neatly in my filing cabinets. The particular documents I needed to retrieve had not been accessed by me in a while, yet I knew exactly how I had filed them, the envelope they were contained within, and where they should be. Key words: "should be." They were not where they belonged.
I searched high and low for my missing file. I tore through basically every single file and filing cabinet within the house. No where to be found. I was getting ready actually to call the State of Florida for some information I needed off these documents, which I knew they would have, when I realized I had overlooked one file drawer. Immediately upon opening that drawer, there was the file. My documents were in the envelope I expected them in, in the folder labeled as they should be. Fifteen minutes of expected work turned into over a 1 hour tear.
After that paperwork tear, I realized I still have too many old papers than I need, many of which were no longer useful. I have paperwork from transactions almost 30 years old, histories of defunct businesses, and just a huge volume of useless paper. Shameful.
I purged the papers. I systematically dismantled the corporate history of 2 prior businesses, and decades of old personal and work information. I have to be very careful at times like this, going through this type of paperwork brings back floods of memories, which I can get wrapped up in. Its not good. In order to accomplish a task like this (which I had absolutely no plans on doing today) I must be focused, unemotional, and ruthless. I was all 3 of those things for several hours as I tackled mountains of papers, all of which I will never need, yet much of it so difficult to pour through.
After I sorted for hours, I looked at the photos from after the fire, and then went back to the remaining paperwork, and sorted out even more. Ruthless.
I am now down to the "nitty gritty" getting rid of things. What remains is the hardest to go through. I have pared down so much, with each purge I see certain things over and over that I think "I will deal with that later" because some of it is so hard to face. But, later is now. I have more to donate, more to sort, but its difficult, very difficult. Yup, its "just paperwork," and "just things," but attached to every single item is a memory.
I'm glad today's purge is over. It exhausted me. To cheer myself up, I made a batch of homemade (vegan! organic! fair trade!) peanut butter cups. One for me, one for Mr. Happy Vegan, and the rest going out the door to my friends. It was comforting being back in my familiar kitchen territory. Venturing out into the "memory zone"... not as easy.
Once I got the morning chores done, I set out to find some particular paperwork. Although I'm disorganized in many facets of my life, when it comes to paper I am surprisingly organized. My filing is relatively up to date, files are labeled and lined up neatly in my filing cabinets. The particular documents I needed to retrieve had not been accessed by me in a while, yet I knew exactly how I had filed them, the envelope they were contained within, and where they should be. Key words: "should be." They were not where they belonged.
I searched high and low for my missing file. I tore through basically every single file and filing cabinet within the house. No where to be found. I was getting ready actually to call the State of Florida for some information I needed off these documents, which I knew they would have, when I realized I had overlooked one file drawer. Immediately upon opening that drawer, there was the file. My documents were in the envelope I expected them in, in the folder labeled as they should be. Fifteen minutes of expected work turned into over a 1 hour tear.
After that paperwork tear, I realized I still have too many old papers than I need, many of which were no longer useful. I have paperwork from transactions almost 30 years old, histories of defunct businesses, and just a huge volume of useless paper. Shameful.
I purged the papers. I systematically dismantled the corporate history of 2 prior businesses, and decades of old personal and work information. I have to be very careful at times like this, going through this type of paperwork brings back floods of memories, which I can get wrapped up in. Its not good. In order to accomplish a task like this (which I had absolutely no plans on doing today) I must be focused, unemotional, and ruthless. I was all 3 of those things for several hours as I tackled mountains of papers, all of which I will never need, yet much of it so difficult to pour through.
After I sorted for hours, I looked at the photos from after the fire, and then went back to the remaining paperwork, and sorted out even more. Ruthless.
I am now down to the "nitty gritty" getting rid of things. What remains is the hardest to go through. I have pared down so much, with each purge I see certain things over and over that I think "I will deal with that later" because some of it is so hard to face. But, later is now. I have more to donate, more to sort, but its difficult, very difficult. Yup, its "just paperwork," and "just things," but attached to every single item is a memory.
I'm glad today's purge is over. It exhausted me. To cheer myself up, I made a batch of homemade (vegan! organic! fair trade!) peanut butter cups. One for me, one for Mr. Happy Vegan, and the rest going out the door to my friends. It was comforting being back in my familiar kitchen territory. Venturing out into the "memory zone"... not as easy.
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