Twenty-seven years ago, when we moved into our current home, my sister-in-law gifted us a gold Godiva tin filled with hardware. "It will get you started on whatever you want to hang," she said. She was right, and that tin has become a catchall for miscellaneous screws and nails and other odd stuff ever since, stuffed so full that its shiny, round lid can barely contain its contents.
When I was on my tool-drawer organization kick yesterday, I ordered a box that held other little boxes, thinking that at last, I might get to the bottom of that tin, both literally and figuratively. And I was excited when it arrived today, immediately beginning a zen-like task of sorting three decades of tiny metal things into like piles.
It was very satisfying and restful until it wasn't. I looked up an hour or two into the chore and realized my back was tight and my head ached from squinting. The dining room table was still strewn with hooks and anchors and nuts and washers and wires and allen wrench keys, so many allen wrench keys, but I was fried. There would be no more organizing today.
I was tempted to question the task itself, chastise myself for spending precious hours on such a trivial pursuit, but I restrained myself. I knew I was just overtired. I cleaned up, confident that another day soon I will return to this chaos and set it to order.
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