Julie walked down the rows of shelving looking for the box she needed. It shouldn't be too hard to find what she was after, she knew it was from elementary school, maybe third grade? That would be where she started to look anyway. She knew there were a lot of boxes in here, and that maybe she should get rid of a few things, but she liked keeping it all. You never knew what you might need. When she tried talking about her filing system to Dr. Brasses, he of the "Call me Chaz" fame; who wants a psychologist that wants to be called Chaz? How would she ever take any advice he gave seriously? Chaz? Anyway, Chaz told her that it was very much the same as hoarding. Even though she argued that it wasn't anything like hoarding because it was all neatly stored away. Well most of it was. There was that stuff from her mid-twenties. All of that was still in a pile in the corner, sort of half sorted. But someday when she had more time she would organize all of that as well. Just not today.
Ah! Here it is, third grade art projects. She was pretty sure there would be an easy art project for the Holiday Bazaar booth in here. As she sorted through files she came across a purple folder. What was this doing here? The purple folders were all of David's things, why would this be here? She opened the folder and saw it was a list of Christmas Cookies his mother used to make when he was little. Tucking it under her arm she walked over to the section where his things should all be kept. As she opened the file box to put it away she noticed that it was half empty. Where were the rest of his things? Turning around to look at the rows of boxes Julie noticed that some of the box lids weren't on straight. Every time she lifted the lid of one of the crooked boxes there would be a purple file tucked in with the manila ones. Here was David's file about how to fix a car in her box of files about her first car. There was the file on his first job mixed in with her college admission things.
It was going to take forever to sort these things and put them all away again. Why would they have been moved in the first place? His things needed to stay in his box. Not mixed in with hers. How frustrating. Grabbing purple files where ever she could find them she brought them back and put them in his box. They could be better organized later, that wasn't as important right now, just getting them out of her boxes was the important thing. They were everywhere it seemed like. A splash of purple here and there all over her things. Grab the file, put it away, open another box grab the file, put it away. Carefully avoiding the mess in the corner. If there were any purple files there they could just stay for awhile. As she was finishing up she had to stop and think for a moment what she had come here to find in the first place.
Oh that's right. The crafts. Back down to the school area. Open the box for third grade and....purple file. David's favorite Christmas Cookies from when he was a child. Looking back down the row of boxes she had just sorted she could see the lids were all crooked again and knew if she opened any of those boxes there would be a purple file in them. Slouching against the shelves she thought maybe this was a bigger job than she realized.
"Julie? Julie, are you okay? You seem a little far away. What do you think about the booth idea?"
"What? Oh sorry, just thinking about some crafts we did back in third grade and got a little distracted. If you'll excuse me I need to make a quick call, I'll be right back.
This is Julie Shorens for Dr. Brasses please. Yes, I'll hold.
Dr. Brasses? Yes, sorry, Chaz, I was wondering if I could come in and talk to you about my storage issues. I seem to be having a hard time with my filing system since David left."
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