Maggie AstorCompte certifié

I walk into the apartment, immediately change into clothes I don't care about, get out the ladder, climb above the closet, and hoist myself into the storage space. I brush aside the dust and cobwebs and stare smugly at the neatly stacked plastic bins. 7/

It is a tight space. I have to twist and contort myself to move the boxes around. It is not comfortable. But it's going to be worth it. I start looking through the boxes. And looking, and looking, and looking. I am getting sweaty and irritable. 8/

The syllabus isn't there. None of my syllabi are there. My papers and assignments are there, but no syllabi and no class notes. Where the hell are they? 9/

And then I remembered. 10/

Three years ago, I had bedbugs in my apartment and had to transfer everything in storage from cardboard boxes into sealable plastic bins. My husband and I were overwhelmed, and he asked me, couldn't I get rid of SOME of this stuff? 11/

I hemmed and hawed and then said to myself: Maggie. You're a goddamn adult. You do not have to keep every piece of paper you touched in 16 years of education. Sure, keep the papers you wrote. But the readings? Notes? Syllabi? You're never going to need any of that. Let it go. 12/

And I threw them out. All the readings. All the notes. All the syllabi. 13/

I remember all this, and slowly, dejectedly, I climb down from the storage space. I text my friend: I'm sorry. I do not, after all, have the syllabus from this course I took sophomore year of college, because three years ago I gave in to my internal Marie Kondo voice. 14/