I am something of a packrat. I like to think I’m a recovering packrat, but occasionally reality comes in and smacks me in the forehead.
When I left my job, I had cleanup to do, mostly digital. 13 years of saved emails and files, because “you just never know when you might need it.” And on occasion, I did need to go back and retrieve an email or two. But still… As I deleted them, I started to wonder, what did it cost me to keep all of that? At first, I was actually glancing over each one as I deleted them, just in case it was something important that needed to be documented or passed on to someone else. But I had thousands of emails, and even a month’s notice wasn’t going to do the job. On my last day, I dumped hundreds of emails and files, and I could literally feel physical weight leaving my shoulders as I did it. It was a strange feeling. Like I had been carrying around all of these half resolved issues inside me, not just in bytes on a server somewhere.
So, having left all that behind, I wanted to come home and feel like it was a fresh, clean slate. But there is a wee bit of a problem with that fresh, clean slate. I also have more than 13 years of crap in this house. And I am in it all day now faced with stuff at every turn. It has to go.
Ok, so I have the time now, let’s make it go. Buster Brown wants to organize the toy room. Fine by me, toys are a major problem. (Technically, there is only one toy room, in the basement, but in practical terms, every room in the house is a toy room.) So we head downstairs. Two hours later, I realize the futility of it all. What for me is an attempt to organize and thin out the toys is for my four year old son a treasure hunt. Much of this stuff he hasn’t seen in months, so for him, it’s brand new! “Oh, I was looking for this!” he says repeatedly, as each new treasure is unearthed.
I realize I have an awful lot to learn in this new job. For example, never bring a four year old along to organize toys. Unless, of course, your definition of “organize” is to “discover, play with, and insist on leaving out for daddy to see.”
I must say, though, that it’s a lot of fun to live in a four year old’s world. He is really getting going with imaginative play, where his toy people talk to each other and have distinct personalities. So when you assign a unique universe to each toy, I would imagine it is very hard to put it away.
So, I guess I will have to take my desire to accomplish something elsewhere. I have a four drawer file cabinet in the corner of my office, black and industrial and defiant. I have no idea what “treasures” lurk in the backs of those drawers. Perhaps I shall even hear myself say, “Oh, I was looking for this!”
