Checks and Balances

I have a tendency to save things. This is not good, as those things tend to accumulate and take up too much space. As I get older, I am discovering that the things I saved, are, for the most part, useless. Even to me.

A case in point: I have every check I ever wrote from the time I opened my first checking account until the banks stopped returning them with the monthly statements. In sorting through these canceled paper checks, in an effort to de-clutter, I was struck by the simplicity of my life in those early days of adulthood. I had a car, but not much else. Even after I got married, my wife and I lived in a one bedroom apartment for the first three years. We took trips and had everything we wanted. In a relatively clutter-free environment.

Then we bought a house, had children, and generally over-bought things. I began saving things that belonged not just to me, but to my whole family. Thus did my life of clutter begin.

Now, I feel the need to get back to the simple existence of my earlier days.

In looking through each year of canceled checks, I have come to realize that I need to keep only a few samples as mementos of my earlier life. A rent check in the amount of $195. A check to the US Mint showing how much I paid for proof coin sets, which, many years later, have a market value below what I paid for them. Some investment! A check to a grocery store for $9. Even a few for under a dollar!

Another reason for saving just a few samples of those old checks is to see how my signature has changed over the years. It has changed relatively little and is still legible when I sign today. I never understood those straight line signatures some people are fond of using. Are they too lazy to sign their full name, or does it take too much time?

So, in trying to come full circle and return to a simpler time in my life, I am systematically discarding all evidence of those complicated years between then and now.

Call it a system of checks and balances, if you will.