Today’s prompt: Write about an object you’ve kept longer than expected.
I’m not a hoarder, but I definitely do keep things longer than I should. Right now, there’s a stack of at least 15 white t-shirts sitting on a shelf in my closet that I’ll never wear but can’t get myself to get rid of. Many are stained from being worn while I was woodworking, others don’t fit well, and the collars of some are wimpy. Will I really use them as rags?
If we go down a couple of shelves, you’ll find an IKEA Kallax bin full of socks. I’ll never wear the Toronto Raptors socks I got as a gift. Why do I so many pairs of dress socks when the last time I wore anything fancy enough to justify them was at our wedding a year ago? Every morning, I rummage through that bin in the dark looking for a pair of socks to wear, begging the question: why are the ones I never wear on top?
The office is full of things that I haven’t used in far too long but still won’t get rid of. That Wacom tablet was a waste but I keep it sitting on my desk, only for it to remind me that it’s never been used. There’s a laser cutter head for a laser cutter I don’t have. A broken cutting board that I haven’t glued back together in a few years.
Some days, I just want to sweep everything into the bin and start again. A complete restart. The better part of me fills with anxiety at the thought of doing so. Sometimes, I come upon treasures, like when I found some sticky notes with story ideas on them from over a decade ago.
If I had a better system for keeping track of my things, I might be in a better position to clean a lot of it out. I want to believe that digital solutions are best, so I lend myself to new approaches, neglecting to realize that the simplest way is best. Hell if I can find anything I’ve archived digitally.
Find more writing prompts over at Letters’ Lounge.
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