Sorting Through Papers

Before sixth grade, my family moved from Iowa to Minnesota, and I remember my mom asking me what I thought about moving. I told her it would be a good opportunity to get rid of some stuff - to simplify & pare down.

I believe that I have always been inclined - whether because of genetics or early influential childhood experiences - to be a "saver," although I'm not this bad. If something is old, unusual, or memorable, I'll stick it in a file. I like to go through things later, and wonder what I was thinking when I saved them.

I was wrong, at age 11, to think that moving is a motivation to sort through your things and get rid of stuff. Now that Heather and I have lived in our house for two years (as of next week), I've discovered that it's actually reasonably long periods of stability that make throwing stuff out possible. The thing is - when you're moving, you don't have time to sit down and decide what's important and what's not. Now that we're in a small house, though, I have the time & motivation to go through the old papers and sort the truly memorable from the detritus.

The thing is, though, there's something fun about even the detritus in my little walks down memory lane. Sure, they may not carry much actual meaning for me, but they are a physical remnant of a time gone past. And these bits and scraps are evocative in their specificity. For example, the church bulletin from the day I was baptized is hand-typed. Who would remember that's how the old programs used to look? Still, cuts have to be made, and I am only keeping one copy - rather than three - of the paper I wrote for the ordination committee in 2003.