My name is Sheri and I am a hoarder.
The newspaper, the Wall Street Journal to be specific, is the thing I accumulate, stock, collect and store (my husband might say shoes, but he’ll agree to the paper as well). In another galaxy, far, far away, I had to read the Wall Street to begin my work day at the brokerage firm where I processed tenders and mergers. That was when I discovered the Wall Street had a lot of personality. Thirty years later, in the very early morning, someone still delivers it to my my porch. I’m certain I receive the digital version as well, but I’ve never once looked at it. Feeling the paper in my hands, cutting articles with scissors in place of forwarding a link, is a thing that on some level satisfies my soul. Upon receiving an article my kids have said, ‘You know there’s probably a link to this article.’ I’m sure there is and I don’t care. Sitting on the porch, with a cup of coffee, reading the paper is one of my favorite things.
To be clear, I don’t read every article, I’m not all up on Manafort, or why Canada and the U.S. missed a Nafta deadline last Friday, or Amazon’s plans to take over the world. But I now ponder questions to ask our financial adviser about retirement. Among so many other things, I’ve learned about on-line tools that can help with depression, that many most harassed women stay silent, that Twitter can be mob like (shocking), the hospital of the future will look different, and that Lego is restructuring due to weaker sales and a lower profits. (Legos are the awesome, let’s all go buy some!)
When I go on vacation and friends stay here with our dog, I’m happy to share my paper with them, but also I offer a place to collect the papers so I can go through them upon return. This explains the Target bag full of newspapers. Like an episode on A&E I hear myself saying things like, “No, don’t recycle those yet, I’m going to read them.” and “What if there’s a good article in that pile?” I’m known to cut articles out and leave them around the house for our kids to read when they venture home. Ideally if everyone would initial the article after they’ve read it and then discuss it at dinner I’d be so happy! With everyone out of the nest this doesn’t happen often, so I clip, address, find stamps and leave envelopes for the postman to pick up.
Here’s the thing, reading the newspaper slows me down, it causes me to sit, savor coffee and read at my leisure. I don’t feel rushed to read the article in a feed or save it as a link and then forget about it, I read it when I want. (How many recipes, links and articles have a saved on Facebook? 34. That’s not counting the links I’ve emailed to myself to read or reference later; which I might be hard pressed to retrieve because I don’t label them.) Reading the paper this way feels old school in this new world. I appreciate the exposure to other’s thought out opinions, the learning to be had, reviews read, and insights gained.
My quirky newspaper habits just might also be about connection; about letting my family and friends know, ‘Hey I thought of you today. I read this and I thought of YOU. I am aware of your interests, personality, life and I want you to know I think about you when you are out of my sight.’ Another category is ‘I found this interesting and since you don’t live here anymore I can’t read it out loud to you.’ (Always a favorite – one time I read an entire Wikipedia article about Parishs to Courtney as we drove into New Orleans at 1 am. She about died.)
This week I got caught up on a whole big stack of papers, so some of you might want to watch your mail.
I’d LOVE to here from you ~ what do you collect, store, hoard? I’d love to hear why!
Also, what do you do to slow down?
I, like you, still love to sit and read the paper every morning as I drink my coffee. I even read some of your Wall Street Journals while I was at your house and was pleasantly surprised how much I liked it!
I guess I’m a clothes hoarder, but am doing better since I retired. I’m trying to wean myself away from it, but it’s not easy. I think it’s because I think I’ll look better in the article of clothing than I really do, but it IS the same body! You can dress it up, but it doesn’t change it! I’m working on that as well.
Oh Pat, I love that you too read the paper, and that you enjoyed the Wall Street while here!
Clothes….that’s an easy thing to hoard! Like you, I am aware that clothing is another area I need to be weening myself. I have the same thoughts as you — but in 5 lbs this will look great again! Cheers to mornings, coffee & the paper!
Sheri,
As we have discussed, I can so appreciate what you hoard and why. I’m a recovered newspaper hoarder, but I am obsessed with books, magazines, journals. I love disconnecting from the computer and phone, and being able to really unwind and focus on what I’m reading. By the way, my favorite part of this blog was when you remarked that if you could just have everyone initial the article when they are done reading that would be great. I think there is another whole blog post in that little snippet!