Paper Weight

It’s hard to understand how something so thin can become charged with such power and weight. But I only have myself to blame.

I spent a large portion of Labor Day with paper rather than a plate of barbecue or a poolside drink: accordion files full of bills and pay stubs and leases and doctors’ visits and every possible thing imaginable from the past few years. And I ripped each apart, over and over and over again until my hands cramped.

I ripped through two years of our life together. From when we first met, to our frenetic scribbles back and forth with property management companies on the other side of the country — ardently attempting to convince them that, yes, we were both gainfully employed and that, no, we were absolutely not trying to pull a fast one.

Some more sentimental people would keep a lot of that; and I’ve kept some of it. But most of it had its place, and now its place is with tofu leavings and congealed grease. It’s time to move on and away from that shaky beginning.

***

We’ve lived in our current apartment for almost a year. A year. I can hardly believe it. Mostly because it seems like just a few weeks ago that we could barely move with the cardboard boxes — even when flattened — nearly reaching the ceiling. It was an exhilaratingly terrifying time.

Would we be able to make it?

Is this our next step?

Where does this all lead?

And, very occasionally, blips of hope penetrated that tornadic activity — and we sought them out and acknowledged them. Knowing all too well from our journey to those exact moments that we could easily stumble and see it all fall to pieces.

So as the confetti fluttered down to the floor, a certain catharsis rippled through me — all the way down to my ink-smudged, paper cut fingers. And I wondered.

What’s next?

As I lifted the two massive garbage bags out of the apartment and lugged them down to the dumpster, I couldn’t help but marvel at the weight — at just how much these relatively scattered, mostly meaningless pieces of our lives have added up to so much. And how much of a burden they can be.

That’s when it hit me: the burden.

It’s no secret I’ve been struggling with figuring out what’s next with writing my book. I thought I was finished a little while back. But it only took a week of distancing myself — having a wee break — for the creepy-crawlies of anxiety and second-guessing to get me editing out whole chapters and scraping pages by the handful.

Now, though, the heap is beginning to resemble a manuscript again — those fluttering bits pulled back in and twisted into something quasi-intelligible. But rather than frighting away from the weight of the whole thing — the experience of writing it, the uncertainty of what comes next — I have to remind myself that I’ve been carting it all around with me for years. And now, it’s time that I reach for that finish line, knowing full well that it doubles as a starting gate.

And that I should get ready to sprint — enjoying the rush, the wind pushing against me, and the race around the track, regardless of where the next finish line may lay.