I have been missing in action for a while. It’s because I am surrounded by boxes. Literally everything I own is either in a box, planning to be in a box, on its way to being in a box, supposed to be in a box or thinking about getting into a box in the next few moments. Sigh. Moving is hell. There is just no nice way to say it.
I have moved more times than I can count. I don’t even own that much anymore. Every time I move, I get rid of a ton of stuff and yet, it still seems like a mammoth task. I wonder how we accumulate so much junk? I am not a “shopper” so I really can’t say that I go out and buy the stuff. I am not a “hoarder” so I can’t say that I hold on to every little item that crosses my path for sentimental reasons. My biggest problem is paper.
I am buried in mail. I receive more pieces of useless mail than anyone I know. Once I became a medical professional, I instantly started receiving free magazines about every medical subject that existed, invitations to conferences that were not even in my specialty and advertisements for products that were of no interest to me. It was as if my name suddenly became available to every pharmaceutical company on the planet and they all had my home address. The next thing I knew, I was buried in junk mail.
The problem is that it never stops. It doesn’t matter how many times I move, how many times I “unsubscribe” from these listings, how many times I make my address unlisted or my phone number unpublished, they always find me. I have tried everything. I have even subscribed to a professional company to help me stop the mail from coming but it still arrives.
So, here I sit. On the floor for days, sorting through the piles of unopened junk mail, flipping through magazines that have never been read, just to remove my personal information so I can fill a box that will end up being sent to a professional shredding company when I move. This could have all been avoided if these companies had never sent this useless mail to me in the first place.
Then I realized, I am not responsible for accumulating this junk afterall. I never asked for this stuff in the first place! That is one small consolation for the pain of having to sort through all of this paper in order to move. At least I didn’t intentionally do this to myself. Somehow, that isn’t making my back hurt any less as I push another box across the floor.
So, the blog entries have been limited lately as I have been boxed in by mountains of paper. In this technological age one would think that there was less paper being wasted in the world but I am here to tell you that is not the case. There are plenty of companies still assaulting the innocent public with useless advertising of products through the mail.