File Finds

Once upon a time, I dreamed of having a large office. Part of it would have large file drawers filled with important information for clients that I would regularly need to retrieve (yes, I'm odd). When mom was getting rid of a two drawer file several years ago, I quickly snatched it. My parents wondered why I needed it, but I thought it would be handy.

In the years since, my two-drawer file has held my tax information (not that I make enough to pay taxes), prescription information (which is mostly the same each month), nurse's paperwork, and much more. The majority of the paperwork has gone into their various folders, with appropriate labels, never to be touched again. That is, until this month.

With multiple nights without a nurse, mom thought we needed a project to help stay awake on our late nights. She has been in a cleaning kick lately, so my file drawer sounded like a good project. Each drawer is maybe three feet deep and almost completely stuffed with valuable (or not) information. Mom's mantra has been that you eat an elephant one bite at a time, so we took on the project in small chunks.

Living the quad life, I can't physically go through my own mail and paperwork. Therefore, I direct my caregivers to what I want done and it works well. Thankfully, I've had many assistants that have stayed for several years and I trust them completely. Therefore, some routine items, like reports from social security 2-3 times a month, just get filed without my needing to direct. Somewhere along the way, this has resulted in some interesting finds during our late night project.

Around 2005, I was looking at returning to college for my next degree. We found several college information pamphlets, including one letter that had never been opened, but was nicely filed away for over a decade. In my stored camp information, one find included my name filling an entire sheet of paper, with nothing else on it. I'm not sure why a black and white name tag from an unknown year needed to be archived, but it has now been refiled under recycle. Other treasures, such as paperwork for researching my diaphragm pacemaker, bring back memories of time and experiences I have been given.

After nine nights, only a portion of one drawer is complete. Moving forward, I think I need to be more observant with my filing system. However, it has been an interesting trip of discovery and remembering the path God has taken me on. Snow and slush is predicted for tomorrow, so I'm guessing I'll have more organizing time. I never know what will be found next, and may not want to either.