Cleaning House

Since I've been at my parents' house (and consequently the house I grew up in) I've been trying to clean out all the junk that I accumulated while I lived here and that has just been collecting dust. I'd like to think I've been fairly successful, but honestly there's still a lot of crap I don't need. I found a box of old bank receipts and important papers and other things that I felt I needed to keep because of something my mother instilled in me long ago. Some odd desire to keep these things because someday I might need them. Well, I brought it upstairs to send all the papers through the shredder (another thing my mother instilled in me: to tear up anything that has my name and address on it before throwing it away, it's like an obsessive thing I can't stop doing). I'm going along, throwing in payroll stubs, receipts and the like, pulling out random photos and other things I'd tossed in there as I went along that I wanted to keep. Then, suddenly, I pulled out a photo of Owl. I paused, then set it with the other photos. I shredded a few more things and thought how it might feel good to toss that picture of Owl in as well. That is apparently all I needed. In it went and I felt no remorse seeing the little bits of it fall into the pile. Ahhh, cleaning house is a good thing.