I May Never Have to Buy Another Birthday Card!

I'm on a cleaning up and throwing out binge. This urge comes over me every once in a while--not often enough, some would say--and I get great energy and start going through drawers and closets and chucking stuff out--not quite at random, but something pretty close--and by "out," I of course mean to the proper recycling container in my garage.

Tonight I hit my desk drawer and my stationery drawer. The desk drawer had become of late a shambles of pens, pencils, rulers, staples, paper clips, bookmarks, sticky notes, felt pens, dry erase markers, ear phones, business cards, rolls of Scotch tape, and other miscellany generally useful in a home-office setting. My tactic was to take everything out of the drawer and put it all in a large pile on the floor. I wiped out the drawer. Ah . . . a clean start! Then I sorted. Like items with like items. Finally, I returned the useful things to the drawer in containers of various sizes and shapes, and threw the rest out. One down, many to go.

The second drawer was my stationery drawer. It's the bottom drawer of the tall dresser in my bedroom. There were many boxes of cards--male birthday, female birthday, kid birthday, cheering up, and blank. Unfortunately, in my hurry at various times in the past, I would open several boxes to choose an appropriate card, flip through them, and then hastily shut the drawer, thinking I'd get back to rearrange it when I had more time. Well, tonight was that time.

Being the multitasker that I am, I pulled the drawer out, set myself up on the living room couch, and turned on an episode of Bones. Meanwhile, I took all the cards, writing paper, and envelopes out of the drawer, made little piles around me on the couch and used the hour of watching Bones to rearrange the drawer.

Here's where the title of tonight's thoughts comes in. If I lived to be 150, I don't think I could use up all the cards and writing paper. Maybe you're wondering how it is that I have so much choice right at my fingertips. I think it's a convergence of several things. First off, I have always liked writing to keep in touch with those who have departed--moved away, that is. Second, a Carlton Card shop that used to be open in the local mall went out of business. It was so long ago that I can't even remember when it was, but some time in the last six or so years. Not one to resist such bargains, I do remember scooping up several, if not many, boxes. They were at least 50% off and so lovely! Finally, and most importantly, accumulating these ways and means of keeping in touch seemed to me to be a tangible way of hanging on to . . . something . . . I'm not quite sure I can articulate what. Keeping in touch, that's what it was all about.

Anyway, I have brought order out of chaos. I have a sense of accomplishment. And I may never have to buy another birthday card!