The Papers

My nephew got the idea to buy a shredder. He said that he got the idea from my uncle who takes his stuff to be shredded not far from where he lives and he sometimes comes over to visit when he does. So, my nephew said a shredder for him would be ideal since we all have stuff that can benefit from it.

So, the other day I was cleaning out some stuff. Boxes I haven't looked at in years. You know the boxes that you just push aside in the back of your closet or garage and say you will get to them later but later never comes until years later. So, it was one of those boxes. We moved here about 8 years ago give or take and before that my life and my mom's life was filled with papers not good paper just papers that you wish you never had to have or see or sign. Papers that will bring back bad memories when they are looked at again and that you wished that you had shredded right after they were not a valid part of your life any more.  Papers that proved what kind of people you had in your family their real character. You found out through a bunch of papers what was really important to them and everything that you thought they were wasn't true. You found out through a stack of papers that the people you have grown up, loved, were family, thought had your best interests at heart really did not. They were waiting for the day that they could send you papers showing their true colors showing you that you were a fool for decades and when you were helping them they were plotting against you and ready to send papers when the time came. In the back of their minds they had the papers all figured out and that they knew when the time came those papers would tear your world apart and everything you believed about family would be tested and would be forever fractured and broken. Papers that nobody would ever really recover from even a decade later. Papers that tore everything in your world apart from one limb to another limb and left nothing, absolutely nothing for one person but everything for the other.

People always say oh you have to move on, move forward don't let them steal your "joy" and those people never say how to move on, that you are supposed to figure out yourself and as for your joy you have to figure out where that went and how to get it back if you can. Sometimes you can't and sometimes you might get a small part of it back but you will still struggle with the rest.

Nobody but you knows how those papers on that day and time turned your life into a downward spiral and yes to them it seems that you have recovered for the most part. They are on the outside looking in so until they have been in your shoes they won't know that seems good to them is not all that good in reality. Sure, they see you have a roof over your head, the lights are still on, you have food and clothes and most times you manage to find a way to get what you need not always what you want but you get what you need and you take care of what everyone else needs. You always find a way to make a dollar out of 50 cents. They see that but they don't see the papers, the pain of trying to move forward, the pain of betrayal, the pain of knowing that things didn't have to happen the way they did. The pain of someone that was full of greed, and non compassion and lacked any kind of love for anything but the almighty dollar, that pain of someone and the papers those dam papers.

So, as I shred I vowed to let it all go. Letting go of the papers is freeing me of all the negativity that came with the papers. I won't forget but I will not let those papers fill me with any more dislike and distrust of certain people. The papers are almost gone and so are the feelings that those papers brought. I am focusing on the good. Not the bad or the ugly memories of the papers.

The shredded papers that are sitting in the bag next to me ready for the trash. I say cheers to the good and cheers to the bad too. Now I can move away from the papers forever.