Paper

Paper seems to have an overwhelming presence in my life. It’s a wonder that I don’t have nightmares filled with Paper Monsters: Catalogs chasing me for hour upon endless hour through the Forest of Receipts I Haven’t Dealt With, Credit Card Offers attempting to inflict paper cuts, and Charitable Contribution Pleas trying to push me off a cliff into the Sea of Statements Waiting to be Reconciled.

I deal with an abundance of paper at work, but it’s not the paper at work that overwhelms. There is usually a place for that paper. No, it is the paper at home that piles up at an alarming rate. Junk mail, catalogs, legitimate mail, receipts, school papers…they accumulate at a rate that leaves me wondering where it all came from.

With all of the demands on my time, paper does not rank very high on my list of priorities. I live in a vicious cycle of stacking these papers to be sorted through Some Day. These stacks get shoved into boxes in an effort to gain some semblance of order for the purpose of being able to use my desk or to give the appearance of having everything under control, should some unfortunate soul happen to stop in.

Some Day arrived several days last week. I sorted, pitched, and restacked. I actually found receipts from 2003 that didn’t quite make it to my previous Some Days. I think that if I improved my filing system it would help immensely. If I created a logical place to put all of my papers, then I wouldn’t have any excuses, would I? Maybe, but probably not. Lack of time is always a good one, right?