Filling out forms seems simple enough when any emotional content is removed.
That is until speaking with a very Canadian voice on the phone saying - ‘And you will need to send us an official document stating when you left Canada for Texas and also when you returned to Canada from Texas.’
My calm - sort of - reply - ‘From 20 and 30 years ago? What sort of official documents?’
‘Oh, an old passport, a letter of hire, ……’ At this point I tried not to stammer.
‘But what if I don’t have anything like that?’
The calm, tiredly patient voice replied: ‘Well you could call the Human Resources office where you worked in each place and see if they still have anything on file.’
My head was swirling, thinking of all the boxes and a few files of saved papers. Thinking of all the times, in a fit of decluttering, I emptied files of what I had considered just more clutter. At the same time, knowing that a deep dive into the remains of a rampant decluttering might - just might - unearth the necessary paper work. Will this only take five days? Especially when the remaining four are work days?
Well, as Brené Brown, a vulnerability researcher says - ‘...draw deep on your courage’. For me, my courage has been so incredibly buried that even the thought of such an Archaeological Dig just about sent me running in the other direction. But what must be done, must be done. Gratitude? Grateful that I have some ruins to dig through - my 70 year self as well as boxes, binders and files
So, deep breath and here goes!
“It’s interesting to see that people had so much clutter
even thousands of years ago. The only way to get rid of it all was
to bury it, and then some archaeologist went and dug it all up.”
~ Karl Pilkington, An Idiot Abroad: The Travel Diaries of Karl Pilkington
No comments:
Post a Comment