I’ve been decluttering.

My Closest Companion has wisely taken the opportunity of my recovery from open-heart surgery to start plowing through the landfill that is my home office. It started with a box from the near-avalanche that was my desk. Then another, and another.

I’ve been sorting things into trash, stuff that needs to be shredded, CDs, books, photographs, notebooks (used and unused), stuff to save and stuff we don’t know what to do with.

As always, when I start trying to get rid of stuff, I wind up feeling overwhelmed by piles of junk that seem to multiply in front of my very eyes.

This time, though, my Closest Companion is engineering all this and she insists we are seeing major progress. I have peeked inside my office a couple of times, and, frankly, it does appear much less, well, less full.

What is daunting, though, is the boxes and bins surrounding my chair in the living room. They just keep filling up.  And there seem to be more and more of them every time I look.

There have been some treasures unearthed. Cards from the very first  National Columnists’ Day I created in 1988. Columns from 1985. Photos of my folks from before I was born. Photos of me looking cute — and at least one of me that I find hideous.

I have a box that contains nothing by wires, cables, chargers and power cords. Finding whether any of them are still any good will be quite a chore, I’m afraid.

Shredding everything that needs to be shredded will also be a Herculean task. Yikes!

I’ve found a couple of books I’d like to read again. But there’s also a huge pile of books I’d be happy to give away.

One treasure I was ecstatic to find was a deed that shows I own a square inch of the Yukon. I got it when I was maybe 8 years old —I think I got it by sending away a box top from cereal, but my memory is hazy about that. I researched this once and, sure enough, I do own a square inch of the Yukon – can’t DO anything with it because it’s so small, but I do own it. Pretty cool, huh?

Anyway, my body aches today from hunching over the boxes. I have a long way to go before we’re finished, though.

Who knows what other treasures I might find?

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