Pieces of Me

So one of my "projects" of late has been to organize paperwork. Gasp! Funny how I sort of do that for one of my jobs, but I allow my own personal paperwork to exist in such disarray! And, as with many of my projects, this one has been put to the back burner, brought to the front, put back to the back... You get the picture. Monday night I pulled it back to the front. And let me tell you that it's quite the undertaking. I have a file box into which I just shoved stuff. Pay stubs (from 4 different jobs now so far...), tax papers, dental records, medical records, etc etc etc. Plus various greeting cards I've received. They are all just thrown into this box that I tote around with me from home to home. I guess, in a sense, it's the minutiae of me. Or pieces. I actually changed the title of this blog post just so I could make it a song title post ;). It was a hard choice, actually. I could either make my title alliterative, which I love to do; or I could make it song-ative ;). Which I also love. Music won out. It usually does.

Anyway, so here are a few of the treasures that came out of "the box" that I was surprised to see. Mostly because I forgot about most of them. And because some of the others I would like to forget... Hahaha.

"Fun" item number 1: My divorce decree. Now there's a good time. I have read more than one divorce decree in my life (only one of them being mine -- but it's amazing what they have in some cemetery files...), and I'll tell you what: I don't believe there exists a divorce decree that doesn't leave you feeling empty inside after you read it, even if you don't know the person(s) to whom it applied. The most ironic statement in mine states that it will be as if the marriage never existed. Well, obviously they are speaking of legally and financially. Because for the rest of my life, no matter what else happens, I will have always been married and I will always be divorced. I wouldn't mind if that piece of paper had some magical power to undo the past and make it a true statement emotionally and mentally as well. But it doesn't. So I snub my nose at that ridiculous statement in my divorce decree. Because, again, no matter what else happens, there will always be that sore spot in my heart created by a divorce that did break my heart. And I can never undo that or pretend it didn't exist.

Fun item number 2: A very small receipt that fell out of some tax papers from the years I was in Tuscaloosa (which makes it even more baffling). It's from June 2, 2005 at 9:29 (I assume in the morning) and is from the TSUD bookstore. Which no longer exists (to my knowledge anyway) since they turned that into Barnes & Noble (I think) when TSUD became part of "One Great University" now known as Troy University (where Spring Break never ends, if you believe their radio advertisement from a few years back... I'm not really sure that's something I would advertise...). Hahaha. Anyway, I don't know what I bought there, but it was $45.00. Plus tax. And I'm sure it was a textbook for one of my classes.

Fun item number 3: A printout of my blog post for March 5, 2008! I was once toying with the idea of printing my blog. For keepsake purposes, since it was sort of like a journal. I mean, I used to post daily! So I printed out that blog post to see how long it would be and what it would look like. Well, I realized quickly this would be something that would be costly and use up way too much paper and ink. Maybe if I was less wordy...? Anyway, but I kept the one I did print. It was fun to read over it (even though I could always go back and read my own archives online). I wasn't living in Washington yet, and I was missing my family terribly. My movie quote for the week was from Pretty In Pink. I was in the middle of Strive For Five and had lost a cumulative of .8 pounds by week 8. And my quote of the day (I was changing quotes daily back then) was all about family. And Elka had left something like 4 comments on that post trying to guess what "Baby's" (from Dirty Dancing) real first name was in the movie.

Fun item number 4: My MAT scores. I had totally forgotten I took the MAT for graduate school! MAT stands for Miller Analogies Test. So I took a test with a bunch of analogies with everything from math to English to History to Science. Fun stuff. But I heard that was better than the GRE, so I opted for the analogies! I scored in the 80-something percentile, which doesn't seem too great to me, but I guess it was good enough ;). I also found the letter I had written to attempt to be accepted into the online MLIS program in early 2006. I was not admitted to the online program, of course. My life took a different path altogether and I ended up moving to Tuscaloosa. And I found a letter announcing the bestowal of a scholarship for Graduate School plus a letter announcing my raise of merit for the school year 2007-2008 (for my job at UA).

Fun item number 5: An assignment from Graduate School. I had to prepare a curriculum assignment and I'm thinking it was for Materials and Services for Children. I chose to do a program on America's Declaration of Independence. I had to lay out activities and objectives, mention books I would use, and assignments I would give in various areas such as creative writing and research. Reading it over tonight, I was pretty surprised I had produced such an item! It sounded really good to me! Hahaha. Maybe I copied some smart teacher's plan... ;).

Of course, I haven't finished going through the box of treasures yet. But I'm done for the night. I am trying to decide how long I should keep past insurance claims (dental and medical). And old check stubs. I know they say to keep tax stuff 7 years back. Would work paycheck stubs fall into that category? Any thoughts?

So there you have it. A few pieces of me. Some of which even I had forgotten ;).