A Cleaner Slate

I met my neighbors across the street and was invited over for tea, and as Amber and I talked, I realized we have one thing in common: We both like to move.

One of the great benefits of a move is you get to review all the crap you own, and decide once again, what stays and what goes.

As I unpacked, I found a number of notebooks. Lots of journals started over the years. Some better than others. I still have the journals from 1981 when I met my Brian for the very first time (August 14, 1981, "Met Brian M. I think he's cute.") and the journal from 1983-1984 when I was an exchange student in Brazil.

Those I keep.

But as I went through, I found some journals from 1996, 1997 and 1998 that were so embarrassing I just cringed reading it. And that was ME! That was MY LIFE!

Yeah, those first couple of years post-divorce. The messy icky stuff you write when your heart is broken and your head isn't screwed on straight.

Well, it'd been a good 10 years. I reviewed many of those pages as they hit the shredder pile. It really isn't horrible in the grand scheme of things, but I just realized that I never want my daughter to read any of that stuff. There's plenty of other stuff (like this blog) for her to see what kind of person I am (or was, futuristically speaking).

And I feel like a burden has been lifted.

All for a $10.98 shredder that shreds 6 pages at a time.