So much freaking paper
I started purging my notebooks last night.
I have (I had) two milk-crates full of notebooks, pages and pages of chicken scratch writings spanning from 2001 to the mid-2010s. (Though let's be honest, my handwriting hasn't changed much in the last decade.)
Shitty poetry and dreams and shittier fiction. Random ideas that I had the imagination for but not the skill to do anything with. (And now I have neither.) Post-puberty fantasies that had no other outlet than the words on the page...
And I can't stand to look at any of it.
Circa 2020, I made an attempt to digitize it, and gave up halfway through the first 70-page notebook. I tore up a dozen such notebooks last night, stripping the pages from the wire spiral bindings while snatches of text skated past my eyes.
My brain has a problem.
Well, several, but one is relevant here.
If there's text before me, I read it.
I can't not read it.
I read street signs and license plates,
Do not cross, do not disturb, do not trespass,
Bumper stickers, t-shirts, flags... everything.
My mind was spinning last night, every opportunity my eyes had to read words I hadn't thought about in a decade or two, words I didn't want to remember, thoughts of my teenage years and twenties better left forgotten.
I filled a small wastepaper basket, cleaned out two thirds of the first milk crate, and decided to call it there so as not to overwhelm the recycle bin. And miraculously, managed to not get any papercuts. Though I did break one of my fingernails (right middle).
Leave a comment or continue reading: other Wednesday posts, more memories, or an index of italicization.
