Shredding Down Memory Lane

Sometimes you get to that stopping point after you have moved a lot and realize that you really need to get rid of things that have been being shuffled from one place to another. Well, that is where I found myself this morning as I sat in my Diva Den surrounded by piles of papers awaiting a good shredding. It was way past due and there were quite a few things that were past the seven year mark. So, no time like the present to dive right in.

Bit by bit I waded through the see of my history. A copy of my birth certificate with the first information about who I was and the name with which I came into the world. I found my first three apartment lease agreements (and wow, was rent cheap back in the beginning). Following college, I moved from Charlottesville to Bristol, CT and lived in three places in three years; the first two places were sold right from under me forcing me to move. Third time was a charm when I moved into a place that wasn't going to be sold - an apartment next to the laundry room in a multilevel brick building. After that, I found the purchase papers I signed with my now husband for our first house. This discovery was followed by our next lease for the townhome we rented when we moved to Virginia. And the hits just kept coming with a slew of business cards, expired membership cards, tax returns and the draft of the first letter I wrote to my now in-laws introducing myself as their son's new girlfriend. That was not an easy letter to write for all the reasons those close to us know. 

 In those piles of papers was about twenty-seven years worth of sheet by sheet memories. It's wild that it's been that long and, yet, as I was sifting through the pile it felt like so much of it happened just yesterday. 27 years, 12 residences, 5 workplaces, 4 states, almost 16 years of marriage, 1 kid, student loan documents, daycare to middle school forms, and 2 large bag of confetti memories on which to build new ones.