Many years ago, I found one of my aunt’s deposit slips. It had my father’s name and a general delivery mailing address on it. I was too afraid to ask my mom about it at the time, so I tucked it into my wallet. And then, because I was so young and careless, I lost the wallet. I’ve regretted it ever since, and I would do almost anything to have that piece of paper back now. It could make it so much easier to track him down!

nah, life is never easy.

But there was one folder of letters that was missing. It’s a weird thing that not a lot of people have (but I think everyone should), but when I was a teenager, I went on this sort of unique religious retreat thing. And as part of the retreat, your “sponsor” had your friends and family and church members and anyone in your life at all who wanted to, to write a letter to you telling you how much you meant to them, and why they loved you so much. And at the end of the retreat, the letters were delivered to you, so you could sit there and read them all and feel cocooned in love and caring and wonderfulness. For years, I would pull out those letters when I was feeling particularly bad about myself, but somewhere along the way, I guess they disappeared, because I cannot find them to save my life.
So, the one thing I would want to find in a pile of stuff would be that folder of letters. Or if it had to be just one, it would be the card my dad wrote to me that was part of those letters. My dad is not a super talkative fellow. He kind of quit talking to me when I started growing up (around 8 or 9 years old), but before then, I was a total Daddy’s Girl. I mean, we lived in the same house, but other than orders to do chores or to tell me to get off the phone, I don’t think we had any real conversations until a year or two ago. But with his usual word thrift, he said exactly what I needed to hear: a card with a silly saying on it regarding how messy I can be, signed not with his name, but just four words, ‘We are so alike.’

I’m tearing up now remembering it.

Ah.

One of the casualties of living with The German is that he doesn’t like clutter, at all, which means I have very few of these treasure-excavating scenarios, because the longest amount of time that clutter is allowed to pile up is for a couple of months. I kind of miss it. Most recently, when I did a little winterizing project in our office, I had to clear part of my desk to get to one of our windows (my desk being the one remaining place where I am allowed to let the clutter go unfettered, until H finds a reason that I need to clear it up, like this little project we just did). And what I found were square after square after square of post-it notes with various phone numbers notes and and dates and follicle counts and appointment times and questions regarding this last cycle. It felt kind of weird to throw that stuff away, because all of that information is filed elsewhere, and I don’t need to have it at fingertips availability anymore. I no longer need to know the direct phone number of the IVF cycle coordinator nurse at my clinic. I may eventually need it again, but I don’t need it stuck to a chinese restaurant menu next to the phone. Weird.

And now, I’m off to finally pick out a post for the Creme de la Creme… It’s just so hard to pick one, so hard to be objective about your own writing, I think, to determine what you’ve said that you’re truly proud of having said.

Happy Chanukah!