Monday, March 9, 2015

Spring cleaning--I threw out so many stories!

Now that our kitchen has been reorganized, we decided to tackle the garage and make it into a more usable space for working out, laundry and projects. But in order to do that we had to go through 20+ years of archived paper work, old boxes of mementos, photos etc.

Not a small task but we had already made it easier on ourselves by presorting things so it would be easy to get to the boxes and boxes of old cancelled checks, receipts, ancient tax records and other documentation that had outlived it's useful life.

Saturday morning we put on the coffee and got to work. I pulled all the banker boxes down while Keri went through boxes of personal objects that hadn't seen the light of day in months or years.

Oddly, it was a pretty "whistle while you work" project and we managed to keep the pace up all day.

After about eight hours we had gone through nearly everything and had five 32 gallon garbage bags full of paper to send to the data destroyer--just about everything older than 7 years got bagged up. 

Luckily, I didn't just wholesale dump boxes into the bags. I pulled folders out and did a cursory check for dates and content. It was worth the effort! Going through one folder I found a number of treasury bonds I purchased in the 90s that are now mature--cha ching! I also found gift cards, See's gift certificates and other things we definitely wanted but had completely forgotten about. 

As Keri went through her possessions she did quick searches to check their market value--one statue she bought when she was in her 20s was now valued at over $3000. Others from the same set were also pretty valuable. These she set aside--the rest went to Goodwill.

Pretty good return on our time investment if you ask me.

After sending two full car loads to GoodWill our garage was much more manageable--our laundry area is completely cleared and I can now use my weights and punching bag again. A quick google search gave us the number of a mobile data destruction company that will come to our house to deal with the bags of paperwork, so no tedious shredding either.

However, not everything could be gone through quickly.

In going through my own personal paperwork I put aside a couple boxes full of my old journals, letters, cards and photos from my earlier life--it was too much to go through so I left it for when I could spend some time on it.

Two boxes really isn't that much stuff--I considered just putting it back on the shelf. But with all the other paperwork and personal effects out of the way, I felt just enough curiosity to take a look at what I had been holding onto for all these years.

I sat down with a beer and opened the first box. I was pretty sure I was going to throw most of it away but decided to go through each folder just as I did with all the paper records.

It takes a while to go through twenty years worth of cards--before email was so prevalent I sent lots of letters. I found cards and letters from friends I hadn't spoken to in years. Seeing their names and addresses made me smile.

Mixed in with the cards were dozens of hand written letters sent to me by my Mother after I had moved away from home--I had somehow forgotten how often she wrote me. Letter after letter were filled with little stories about what she was doing, and each one telling me that she missed me. Never one to be sentimental, each letter was written with my Mom's trademark wit and a little request to keep in touch. 

When I look back at that period of my life I most keenly remember my Mom being angry at me for moving, for our conversations being hard and for feeling deep disapproval from her. At the time I could only see Mom's anger, not her vulnerability--her wish to keep me close.

Reading these letters with fresh eyes, I now see Mom's love and concern for me. I couldn't see that the time because I was too busy feeling judged--a story that ossified and stuck in my mind for years.

To contrast my Mom's sweet letters, I found a sheaf of my journal entries written on loose leaf paper. I was taken aback at how much self criticism I put on myself--I committed to paper dozens of negative opinions about my circumstances, my appearance and many other things I believed were wrong with me. I basically said the same horrible things day after day, reminding myself that I was basically a sorry excuse for a human being. Its no wonder that I was reading the same message I was writing--even if the message said something completely different 

I guess I had to turn into the kind of person who could read these love messages--even twenty or so years later.  Even if I'm late, I'm glad--especially because I am able reflect this love back to Mom with new appreciation today.

Are you going to do a spring cleaning project? Drop me a line in the comments below and let me know how you're doing.

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