Old things

When I go through the list of things that need to be done, I can only see the list growing and absolutely nothing getting ticked off. So many years of making these small chits of paper where I write down every small little single thing that needs to be done (I think the only things I skip are brushing teeth, eating food, bathing and sleeping, which probably explains why I skip bath once in a while) hasn't taught me that they are quite useless.

The more you pen down, the more it gets erased out of your memory and just boils down to a function of how often you look at the list and how willing are you to act on any one of them right away, because again, after a couple of hours, its all gone from the head.

When the semester ended, I was cleaning up my book shelf and I found a couple of them among my papers. I even found one list that had the names of all the people to call before I left India which was one and a half years ago! The best part is I remembered the day I had made that list. My best friend had come home to spend some time with me and she had offered to help by writing down the names for me while I was going insane with the amount of things that needed to be done. And when I look at that list, it reminds me of her lying down lazily on my bed with two pillows up against the wall and the countless memories we had revived and were laughing about, ad mist me freaking of course!

And, so the list went back among the endless pieces of papers I have preserved, either because they have the handwriting of a loved one or because they have ring sizes drawn which were taken without their knowledge, or because my name appeared along with someone else I had a crush on in one of the school official announcements or simply because those gibberish written words remind me of a particular phase of life.

While my mom used to threaten to throw away all the junk I collect, I discovered a big old leather bag in the attic which had all of my mom's memories on paper!! Greeting cards, letters, postcards and photographs that she didn't want to share. All she does is give me a sheepish smile and then I knew where I had got this habit of collecting things.

And still, it was required to give strict clear warnings to people at home about handling all my stuff before I was leaving. I was quite glad and relieved to see everything intact when I went home for vacations this year.

Of course, I scooped up a few more things and transported them here. Obviously, they are absolutely safe only with me!