Journal rdewald's Journal: .6k: A tour of my emotional contexts. 3
I am beginning to notice a pattern of emotional reactions to this work. It begins with resistance. I just don't want to do it. I push forward and begin the work.
Next, I become intensely mindful. Today I was working with a file cabinet I have had for more than ten years. It contained my most ancient of paper files, dating back to graduation from college in 1991, in my possession in New York City. Well, that was the top drawer.
In the bottom drawer of this two-drawer cabinet I find my collection of HD floppies.
Back to the top. I divided the paper I took out of the top file drawer into three piles: scan, shred and recycle. I put stuff in the scan file I might want to keep anyway and I ran into a real challenge--my girlfriend LeeAnn's letters to me as we fell in love in 1986 and 1987. I still carry a bit of a torch for LeeAnn. She's been married for 17 years to the man for whom she left me. I last heard from her when her father died last fall.
Wow. What should I do? It is a stack of about 100 pages of handwritten letters, a few newspaper clippings and some ticket stubs. I held it in my hands for a moment and I felt LeeAnn's spirit flow into my hands and up my arms, warming my chest. I hovered with it over the recycle bin, daring myself to drop it in, but I put it in the scan pile. I don't know what I'm going to do, but I decided not to decide tonight.
I estimate, that if you don't count LeeAnn's stuff, I put about one third of the files into the scan pile, one third in the recycle bin and one third in the shred bin. It freed up the entire drawer. Since I don't plan to hang on to anything I scan (LeeAnn's stuff excepted), I now have room for a bunch a files I have in a milk crate in the other room, not to mention that I'll be going through THAT stuff the same way and eliminating at least two thirds of it. I could get all my files in one place? No! That's crazy talk!
For LeeAnn's stuff I am sort of considering some different options. I could organize it all, every letter is dated, and scan it into a digital library system as a historical document. I can keep it secure with encryption and I would actually gain a level of organization not present now. I could even burn a disc and mail it to LeeAnn. She made some revelations to me in those letters about her life which were the first (and probably the only) time they were put to paper. There's real substance in most of the letters. Our relationship has never been duplicated in my life. It was really something.
But, the Sensei in me says WAS. I should let it go. I should send it all through the shredder. It's over. She married Carl. She's still married to Carl, still complaining about the same things she complained about before they got married. The middle road might be to make a survey of the material, excerpt the really important stuff, scan (or keep?) it, and then shred the rest.
I'll figure it out later. The rush of emotion from just handling those letters for the first time in about ten years was enough for tonight.
I found my college transcript (which I'll scan), and I shredded a mound of stuff which was relevant for me to have years ago, but could only be used against me for identity theft now. It is of absolutely no use to me now. To the shredder.
I'm scanning my jury records, my parking ticket resolutions, my Rule 103 order (authorizing me to perform process service) in Dallas County, some continuing ed certificates, things like that. Digital images are enough.
So, items? My collection of digital images, in fact my entire external HD, is one item in toto. The collection of the individual pieces of paper were an item each. Scanning in this stuff and then recycling it is a massive reduction in my number of items. Think that's cheating? That's okay with me.
I can lose this entire collection of images in one datum corruption. I use it for one thing: as reference. It's one item, no matter how many images (i.e., files) it contains. However, if I decided to keep LeeAnn's letters, each page is a distinct item. It can be retained or lost individually, it could have individual value. LeeAnn wrote on both sides of the page, but it is still one item. You can't separate one page from the other much like you can't really distinguish betweens the ones and zeroes on a hard drive or optical disk.
The bottom drawer was easier. I had about 300 floppy disks in there in 6 disc boxes. I kept three discs containing rather unique documents. I will be eventually moving that data to my external HD and shredding the disks--items gone.
If any of you are holding floppy disks like this out there, consider the fact that my experience was that 1% of them are still valuable. One Percent. That freed up a lot of room. I now have another completely empty file drawer which insures that when I make it around to my milk crates I will be able to eliminate them completely, and get my files in one place, and have them well managed, filed under my current filing system, scanned when appropriate and all where they should be. I doubt I end up using both drawers. Right now, even after reducing two full file drawers to about one quarter of one drawer (even completely retaining LeeAnn's letters), I still have two full milk crates and another banker's box full of files. I really look forward to getting that done in about two-three weeks when I get around to where those milk crates are.
Damn this feels good. That's the final stop of the emotional tour. It feels great to make this kind of progress, to bring this kind of mindfulness to my possessions. It feels really great.
Armchair quarterbacking (Score:2)
It's one conversation, that happens to be stretched over many years and many sheets of paper. A book does not become two items when a page is accidentally ripped out, I'd think, so too this collection remains a single story no matter how it is bound. Emotionally, too, it sounds like one thing. It's a single bit of baggage that may be precious, large, and heavy... but still sing
Re:Armchair quarterbacking (Score:2)
I'm with Peacefinder. I think it has a value in hardcopy that would be lost in electronic form. Actual handwriting on paper carries a power that an image cannot convey. So I think tucking it in an envelope should count as one item leaving a furhter .599k left. From what youw rote I also think its important to keep it. It was in the past, but it still carries weight in the present, especially as you work on your issues of intimacy. (My $.02).
ON a side note I'd like to thank you for writing these. T
Re:Armchair quarterbacking (Score:2)
I have a sack on a shelf in the top of my closet. In it, I have the documentary remains of my First Love. Who has turned out to be my Best Love (so far -- I'm not abandoning hope).
The young man who wrote those is dead now, by his own hand. A hand that will never again put pen to paper.
But I have a precious few dozen pieces of paper which were graced with his touch, that have his mark, that bear his own handwriting, which is as unique and as expressive and as individual as his very face.
My ru