Procrastination Nation of One

Like everyone I was born, but unlike most people I haven't died. In the middle, in the meantime, I've collected papers.

I'm not certain if it's a collection if it's come of its own making, popping up like ants in your cabinets, fully formed (at least, prior to your expected, approved destruction of it). But what else do you call the possession of objects that:

a) You own in bulk to the sacrifice of your living space and storage unit

b) Holds special value to you, and only you (at least now that you Mom is done with it)

c) Is something that you have to make active plans to move, store, and display, even if those plans aren't visually appealing to visitors

A horde? Well, at least it would be if I started filling old juice bottles with my bodily fluids, a point at which I have blessedly not arrived.*

So for now, "a grouping of objects that still maintain their original and/or aesthetic function" seems the best descriptive term. To break the terminology down further, that includes:

-Government and medical documents (typically, but not always, keepsies)

-Art projects (both loosely and strictly defined, depending on age)

-Classwork/ essays/ writings/ quizzes/ tests/ anything a teacher could, and did, hand out for me to hand back and be handed back again, sometimes with stickers!

-Awards/ prizes/ certificates (for a terminal Participant)

-Scribbles/ notes/ thinkings (both profound and shitty)

-Physical objects/ toys/ trinkets/ bits/ bobs of assorted monetary (typically low) and sentimental (typically high) value

From birth to approximately the end of my time in graduate school.

The purpose of this mini-blog is to document them as they leave me and to make their leaving of me easier on my part**.

*MY landlord should be paying ME for my service to this community!

**And maybe theirs; I say thank you and goodbye to the most sentimental of them, like Marie Kondo suggested, but is it enough when you're sending something to a literal dump?