Paper Boy

I’m never gonna get everything I want to get done. Even if I have the post life experience equal to the chicken running around with his head cut off, I’m still not going to finish up the “to do” list. I’m semi OK with it at this point... I mean, I’ve heard “Realizing” the problem is over half of the solution. But one of my problems has taken so long in realizing that, maybe there’s just not enough time to “solve” it.

I seem to collect paper… not hoard it, or perish the thought, keep paper that might be antique or valuable — Nope. Just articles from magazines, or pictures everyone drew from my kids to my Dad, to the first checks I wrote back in college, to my Bennett Valley Elementary progress reports: “Steve takes an extra week or two, but then grasps concepts firmly…” (Such a KIND way to say I’m “slow…”)

I visit my paper(s) on a random basis. Usually when I want to clean it out but touching it one last time, BUT the paper brings back such flood of memories that throwing it away is part of the greatest angst I have in my adult life. It’s mind numbing how MUCH there is. (Or maybe just a NUMB mind can collect this much…)

And it’s a TON. This week on the road, I took an EXTRA suitcase full of just paper, and spent the past week just going through it and attempting to organize it, and yes mercifully throwing away MUCH (Ok, ok… some) of it… certainly not enough to satisfy the trip.

I have finally understood (through a patient wife/muse/therapist) that some NEW solution has to be found, ‘cause otherwise I’ll have to put some paper in storage and then I’ll part with the GREEN kinda paper I might love even more.

Fortunately someone invented the scanner, and someone else fortunately invented the teenager, and I have put these two together with a PLAN. A plan to put the paper in the computer so I can call it up and visit whenever I want. Without the storage fees…

Of course, some things don’t scan, the pictures from the kids, and other stuff that’s just too kooky to mention, but the main thing is I’ll get it somewhere SMALLER, and I’ll keep the really really important paper, including the green kind. I especially like the organizational plan: You see there’s multiple folders inside of other folders in a way that makes up this new system called the Giant “Steve TREE of KNOWLEDGE and other stuff…” and I think that feels so good ‘cause it’s so circular, ‘cause in the real world paper comes from trees…

It took me a while, but I’ve finally firmly grasped that concept…