Why Scraps Of Paper?

I'm not that old. I'm on that edge between the Mellenials and Gen-Xers. Which generation do I belong to? Well, like any good Gen-Xer, I say, "Pff, you can't tell me who I am."  And like a good Mellinial, I said, "I can be anything I want to be."  

Anyway, I'm old enough to look back and realize that some things I thought were just weird things I liked when I was a kid, are, in fact, a deep part of my soul.  

My life is literally filled with scraps of paper that I have saved. I like to write quotes and moments and ideas down on scraps of paper. "Because someday I'll do something with them." 

And I like to make art of out paper, and then it hurts my soul to throw away the scraps because when I look at it, it looks like a pile of raw material, not a pile of garbage. 

And so, my house, like my brain, is an utter disaster.

If you've helped me move, then you've probably carried boxes and boxes of journals, unorganized paper notes, and lots and lots of "raw material."  

It's humiliating to be me, but it's been long enough now that I have realized I have to work with what I have, not just wish I was different.

I was in a book discussion group recently with a long-time friend who went on a tirade about how some people assign meaning to every little thing and she said something like, "Not everything has to mean something.  Somethings can just BE." I just sat there silently thinking 1) she is really going to be annoyed with my website. 2) I'm really glad we're friends. Because she is, of course, right.  I think it's good to be friends with people who aren't exactly the same as you are. 

Still, (with apologies to my friend), I add this final thought: Aside from the literal scraps of paper that I love, it is a metaphor for the way I feel about what matters in life: It is something so every-day it could easily be dismissed. Not the best, but not garbage, if you're willing to work with it. And I just cannot resist the urge to do something creative with it.