perfectly disorganized
February 21, 2016 § 2 Comments
I was methodical in my organization as we packed our old home into storage for our move. Before anything could be neatly preserved with overly articulated labels, they were first sorted by necessity, keepsake, and nonsense. I took full advantage of a heightened consciousness of what we needed and loved, then quickly and painlessly dispensed with the excessive waste that had accumulated in dusty corners and holiday storage bins.
There were things we could not take with – a tiny ant penned by my daughter’s hand into a small dent on the stairway; a smiley face stubbornly swept into the clear varnish on a window sill; my son’s map of the world wallpapered to his old bedroom. The one that pulled hardest at all of our heartstrings was the growth chart inked against the kitchen door frame; hurried lines and proud dates made official by our children’s carefully printed names.
We briefly considered removing the wood and packing it for our move, but compromised over a thoughtfully detailed list of measurements to be transferred to a place of honor in our new home.
Recently, my daughter asked about this paper. Promising myself I would no longer procrastinate, I retrieved the list and congratulated myself on the industry of my thoughtful organization. It was just as it should be, neatly waiting precisely where I had stored it away.
I tucked the paper in a place just under my nose and then proceeded to lose it with record efficiency.
Today I retraced every step trying not to think of the ways I tend to shuffle miscellaneous papers into wastebasket storage with reckless insensitivity. I’ve laughed privately over the irony of my distress while apologizing in panicked disbelief to my children.
Tonight it occurs to me that there is something of a lesson in my loss that I might want to store someplace safe for the future.
scribblechic 
You have just shown your children a very important life lesson Marie. Just how much you love each one of them by the anguish in that lost piece of paper….worth so much more than the paper itself 🙂
But it would be great to find too 😀
Love and LIGHT (excuse the pun 🙂 ) for your search.
As my dad would frustratingly teach me…it will be in the last place you look 🙂
I’m sure, if I find it, it will be in the most logical place I failed to look.