Landmines

Even though it has been two and a half years since Scott’s death, I am still sorting through his things little by little.  I have to say, by far the hardest things to sort through are all of his papers.  Seeing his handwriting is enough to bring all the emotions surging back to the surface.  For those who knew Scott well, you know that he wrote notes to himself on anything and everything he could find – empty envelopes, on the back of bills, edges of newspapers, etc.  He had a notoriously poor memory due to attention deficit disorder, thus the need to write everything down.  It is a painstaking process to read each and every piece of paper to make sure that I am not throwing away a gem of truth, a word of wisdom, or a funny story.  There are many notebooks of dreams and goals – and the research that went with them, notebooks of Bible study and spiritual truth, papers of names, addresses, etc.  Sometimes all mixed together in one notebook.  It is like getting an inside view into how his brain cataloged things.  These are the things that I have to sort through in small doses, otherwise the emotions can become overwhelming.

Last night I was going through a large zipped binder, in order to give Jaelyn some folders that were inside the binder for her to use for her school binder.  Most of what was in the binder was related to rental property stuff.  Disorganized was Scott’s middle name, although he tried hard to keep himself organized.  In that one binder I found a pay stub from 2005 and also one from 2011.  In that particular binder, those were the only things that have any ongoing sentimental value to us.  Yet it took me close to 45 minutes to get through everything that was in the binder, just for those 2-3 pieces of paper.

 I still have a very large expandable briefcase, stuffed full of papers, as well as at least 2-3 more boxes of notebooks and paperwork to sort through.   Every time I look at them or think about them I get overwhelmed.   See, the memories found in these papers are not always positive.  Since Scott wrote everything down, he often would “vent” on paper, similar to me, when we had a disagreement or were going through a rough patch.  Those moments are particularly difficult to relive, especially without him here to process through together.  Fortunately there have not been many of those found in the paperwork, but the one or two that I have found make it like walking through a landmine.  It is one thing to reflect back on the regrets that I have, of things I wish I had done differently, but quite another to see some of those regrets spelled out in black and white.  Hindsight is 20/20 and I refuse to live in those regrets, but to take them and learn from them moving forward, but this is sometimes a day by day (or hour by hour, or minute by minute) conscious decision.