Yesterday, I was doing a very January sort of thing. I was reorganizing files.
I hauled all our files that have been in temporary file tubs (for five years) to the basement to put them into the filing cabinets that lived in the other garage (for five years) before Eric very helpfully moved them into our basement a few weeks ago. (Go Eric!) I got rid of old stuff. I filed new stuff. I reorganized until there they were … all our files and statements and important documents happily residing in one location. How very January of me, right?
And I realized … Going through old files is kind of like looking into an old photo album. Those files represent who I used to be.
I threw away most of the old statements from my original bank account, the one I opened with my mom’s name on it before I graduated high school and closed just after I got married. I threw out old statements from the houses and apartments I shared with my sister and roommates along the way (though I kept a few so I have proof of address for old residences – this is not a bad idea, I’ve found). I piled up contracts from jobs I don’t have, applications for programs I applied for, and loads of other documentation of my past lives. And I threw them away.
Maybe you can remember all of those people you used to be:
- The high school student who never fit in … or who was everybody’s favorite.
- The college graduate moving into your first apartment, trying to get life figured out on your own for the very first time.
- The season of life when you dated your spouse.
- The trenches of parenthood, when the excitement of pregnancy and childbirth deteriorates into never-ending days of diapers and spills and feeling like a nobody.
Filing cabinets hold all of those versions of us … and memories, too. The acceptance letter you were so proud of. The first job you lost, whether by your choice or theirs. The landlord you hated. The roommate who moved out and the soon-to-be best friend who moved in. All of it, wrapped up in manilla folders, our lives in paper.
I went through all those things yesterday. I paged though my life, exploring a strange blend of my past and my present. Who I was then and who I have become. But here’s the thing: they didn’t tell me much about my future. At least, not until I had to make room, to choose what to keep and what to throw away.
In one drawer, I found my file of classroom evaluations from when I taught college (before the twins were born). I keep that file because the students’ comments were really positive. They appreciated me. They sent notes and letters that affirmed me for who I was and how I built into their lives, inside the classroom and out of it. I was good at that. And I liked that version of who I used to be, the one the students talked about in their comments.
Nearby was half a drawer of grad school files. I enjoyed grad school, too. It was challenging, on many levels, but very rewarding. So I kept a lot of my class handouts and reading assignments. But as I looked at the cabinet space (and what still needed to fit), I realized that some of it had to go. So I sorted. I kept the papers I wrote and the syllabi from each class. I threw away pretty much everything else — because when I forced myself to be honest about it, I don’t want to be that person again. Grad school is great for a lot of things, but it requires pretentious “thinking” about things that don’t always have a lot of practical application. And I don’t want to be that version of myself again.
Looking at those files helped me narrow down who I do, and do not, want to be as I go forward.
Most parents, especially stay-at-home moms, will eventually come to a place when the children’s needs change and they realize they’ve lost who they were somewhere along the way. I’ve been there these last couple of years, as Timmy moves swiftly from preschooler to Kindergartener. And it’s normal, as depressing as can be to realize you got lost in your own life. Most of all, though, I think it’s a good thing. It means your children are developing they way they should, and it means that we no longer have to be defined by what we do for someone else. We have an opportunity to find out who we want to be, now.
Deciding what to keep and what to throw away was a valuable exercise for me. Keep the teacher; ditch the pretension. I still love to think and engage and make arguments: that part of me will never go away. And I am a teacher, whether I ever step into a classroom again or not. But I don’t want to engage in esoteric discussion and miss engaging with real people. I want to connect with people so that I can encourage and equip them to do their thing better and to see them engage with and understand God better, too.
And it only took fifteen-year old files to help me see it.
Talk to me: What about you? Who did you used to be? Do you miss those people? Which parts of yourself are you needing to get back to? Which can you put away, maybe for the first time ever?
