sentimental de-filing

November 20, 2002 &bull productivity

Over the last few weeks I’ve been cleaning out my paper files — mounds of paper which I have been accumulating for the past 5 years. I started doing this after I realized that, from a physics perspective, it was easier for a tornado to run a piece of straw through a telephone pole than it was for me to add a single sheet of paper to my over-stuffed file box. Time to streamline.

Generally speaking, I’m a pretty sentimental person. I tend to reflect a lot on memories and experiences and sometimes — OK, frequently — over-analyze things. Example: I remember having the following conversation with my wife after my gall bladder was removed:

Matt: “But, don’t you think it’s weird? I mean, I’ve had that gall bladder my whole life. It’s been growing inside me since I was in my mother’s womb! Now it’s in a dumpster in Encinitas, CA. Don’t you think that’s a little freaky to think about?”

Heidi: “No. I think you’re freaky.”

Keeping this in mind, it’s really not all that uncommon for me to think about the past and emphasize all sorts of weird things. Digging through this old stuff has made me feel, well, even more sentimental. It’s like I’m looking at stuff from someone else’s life. No, it’s more like I’m looking at stuff that belonged to a character in a book I read 10 years ago. Each item brings back memories, it’s just that they are foggy and very surreal. I guess that’s what happens when you start feeling old, huh?

Comments

Comments are closed.

-