GROWING PAPER

I seem to be falling behind in the race to discard paper and items of no use to me. The New Year has brought on new obligations and duties that require my handling forms, lists and sheets of paper! It is starting to make me wonder why I retired. Who retires and still has an office?



Instead of doing other things around the house, I am chained to a desk, making corrections and adjustments to a book I’m designing, and formulating new plans for a business I started. I guess being busy is a nervous habit. I remember Dad: worked all his life, retired and soon died afterward.



My grandmother was 97 when she passed on, but not before making one more phone call for a bus trip she was planning. My Mom decided that a lifetime of raising five children and cleaning and baking and cooking, was not enough, she went and volunteered in her 70’s at a hospital. She will be 93 this May, and will not miss a day of volunteer work at the local hospital.



But as I speak, more paper is growing behind me, beside me, in front of me, and under me. It is everywhere, and I need it all. The committee work, and plans just keep coming, and frankly, I will eventually collapse from all the weight of it.

Last night, I went to a volunteer appreciation night ran by the AHRC Suffolk Chapter, and had to stop myself from bringing home a list I already had in another form! To make things worse, I have ‘documents’ that sit on my desktop of the computer, that I don’t remember why they are there. Will I toss them, no, because then I will need them for sure. The idea is to get as much as I can on the desktop, not need it, and then I won’t have work to do. If I throw it out, I will be very, very busy.

I fully plan to enjoy my retirement, once I go back to work!