Home - Week 5 - Organizational Shredding

This week I have moved my things (laptop, books, magazines, ideas book, etc.) from my comfortable spot on the couch by the fireplace up to my study. The intent with moving to the study is to keep some form of discipline for doing something in the morning and afternoon that resembles work, or at least productivity. Without the stress of course.

I have been feeling better and better physically and so this week I decided to start on some small projects that don't require too much physical work and have established permanent residency in the "need to do" portion of my personal projects list. First on this list was to organize my files. I had done a little organizing before my surgery for things like my will, insurance, mortgage, etc., but what I'm talking about is a complete cleansing.

I probably have at least 10 years of accumulated files that I have neatly transitioned every year from my filing cabinet to a legal box. The legal boxes have subsequently been stacked in an appropriate closet of my respective house. I dragged (mostly using my feet because I have the 5lb limit for my arms) each box to the center of the room, removed the cover and assessed the contents. 10 years is a long time and the contents of each box holds a small record of that period of my life. Each box discovery resulted in some "holy shit I still have that" moments along with the occasional nostalgic sigh, "good times, good times". Most of the time I give the contents the big WTF and put it in the disposal pile.

While I purge a decade of personal and professional records my mom is fully engaged with organizing every other storage space in my house and cleaning stuff that I thought was perfectly clean. I'm not about to argue or tell her to stop; it keeps her occupied, she enjoys it and finds it to be good exercise. On my part, I may have a little re-arranging to do when she leaves because I didn't have a valid argument at the time of re-organizing for why my beer glasses should be on a certain shelf instead of where they are most efficiently stored.

In my world every task, problem or adventure has a gear requirement and this organizational quest of mine is no exception. The majority of the records are financial or contain some kind of personal or confidential information and so it's not so smart to put it straight into the garbage or recycling. Translation, required gear: shredder. I had picked up a "cross-cut" shredder last year with the full intent of becoming more responsible in my personal filing and disposal. Needless to say that didn't occur, but as luck would have it I needed one now.

Its funny how sometimes a little personal property destruction at the hands of a home appliance provides as much entertainment as a Jerry Bruckheimer shoot-em-up movie. It's not as thrilling or dramatic as say taking a chain saw to a dilapidated picnic table, but shredding has a calm rhythm of turning order into an absolute chaos of confetti. Besides, swinging a chainsaw is specifically identified in my rehab brochure as only something I can do 12 weeks after the surgery.

So as my mom scrubs away at something or asks me "do you really need this" and my personal favourite, "when was the last time you cleaned this", I feed sheet after sheet into the shredder enjoying the pile of paper shards accumulating in garbage bags and watching progress as the boxes empty. I go until the overheat light comes on, take a break for a little Tetris and then back to shredding.

My rehab meeting happens this Friday (April 11) and I'm pretty anxious. I have had to fill out various questionnaires for psychological state, diet and fitness. I figure they'll use it to determine what specialists I will consult during the rehabilitation process. I'm looking forward to this meeting because it will set a reality for what is possible. I don't expect any restrictions, but I'll see when I get there. I'm still having lots of trouble sleeping and rarely falling asleep before 4am. The walks are going well although I seem to be struggling with deep recovery breaths. I even had my first beer (half beer really). It was no special occasion, I just decided I wanted a beer.