Sorting and Filing

I have so many boxes of papers and old photos in my bedroom alone, I am trying to go through them one by one, tossing items no longer needed, refiling important documents, archiving photos for later scrapbook pages.  I have found papers, bills, documents 10, 20, 30 years old in those boxes.  Most of them I routinely trashed; safely stored many others.

There were many good memories like trips with my children to Lion Country Safari in Florida and my oldest son's Kindergarten graduation folder, letters from my aunt, and old newspaper clippings.  But some were bittersweet, like the photo of the car my now ex-husband and I bought together, and our wedding invitation.  I stared at that one for a little while; I re-read it.  My most prominent thought was simply, "what a shame."  Just what a shame.  So much blessing, so much promise, so much hope, and gone.  I didn't cry, but I couldn't find it in me to toss it out either.  So I scanned and filed it in old memories.  Maybe I'll never look at it again, but still it is and was part of me and of our family, and I can't just throw that away, even though he did.