Order from chaos? I doubt it!

I am NOT an organizer. Not an organizer of stuff, anyway. And now I am paying the price. Reaching bottom in my chaotic upstairs is requiring endless hours of sorting, filing, shredding, and finding new homes for what is left. I have to be brutal. If it doesn’t have a home, it cannot stay. If someone else can use it, it must go to Good Will, or Salvation Army, or Helping Hands. If it specifically relates to Groveland, it gets to go to the Museum/History Resource Center. If it is garbage, it needs to find its way to the garbage can. If it is precious, it needs to find a home – which may mean determining the relative preciousness of two different objects. I find the process both tedious and painful.

There’s that clipping about the man who codified the game of baseball – who later moved to Hawaii, became the first fire chief of the City of Honolulu, and is buried at Oahu Cemetery in Nuuanu. My great-grandfather Cathcart is also buried there. …. Pack-rats don’t throw wonderful tidbits like that away. So … it’s interesting, but is it really important in my current life? Toss it.

There’s the $.5 million itemized hospital bill for Ray’s 6 weeks in the hospital in 2006. Damned hospital spent all that money to keep him alive, then 4 months later put in a catheter he didn’t need, caused an infection, and ultimately killed him. I’m past the worst of the bitterness and hurt, but not ready to discard that bill. Yet.

There’s the magazines he subscribed to – Hawaii, Scotland, Body&Soul, Yoga, Smithsonian, Southwest Art, ChipChats – and the ones I subscribed to … assorted journals from genealogical societies and other charities we support. There are the ones that were gifts – Prevention, Guideposts … Will I eventually read them? Past practice says not.

Mr. P, there’s still years worth of accumulated Christmas cards. Does that teacher friend of yours still use them? I hope so!

There’s a small mountain of photographs that need to find their way into albums – either hard copy albums or digital ones. Can’t do that until I have waded through the rest of the accumulation.

Lord, help me to see through the clutter to the wonderful space I will have when this is done. I give thanks for the garbage service (can’t begin to match what they have in Honolulu, but at least someone empties the can if I remember to put it at the top of the driveway …) – and for all the wonderful times Ray and I had together while this stuff accumulated. Keep me praying!