Kim Watters here. My past has caught up with me. In the midst of sorting through old boxes of stuff from my youth, I came across an aptitude test that I’d taken in high school a few decades ago. Okay, I guess now is the time to admit I hate throwing anything away. My name should be Kim Packrat Watters.I don’t know why it is so difficult to let go. Maybe it’s because each and every scrap of paper, or tiny glass figurine has meaning to me. Do I really need all the things that I’ve kept throughout the years? No. Can I live without them? Obviously yes, since they’ve been hidden in boxes. But parting with them is like throwing a piece of myself away. I have to force myself to do it because I’m moving. I don’t need every single note my girlfriends passed to me in high school. Past letters from boyfriends are simply taking up space because we’ve all moved on in our lives.
My Girl Scout sash stays and so do the articles I wrote for my high school paper. They represent a lifetime ago and I’ll enjoy sharing them with my kids. But do I really need my SAT scores? I graduated college a few decades ago. Hmmm. Maybe. Not telling you those, though.
Back to my aptitude scores. I’d vaguely remembered this test and always wondered where I’d put the piece of paper. It would be interesting to see what the scores were as an adult firmly planted in the real world. See? Being a packrat helps. As a kid, I hadn’t paid much attention to them. Maybe I was too busy thinking about boys? College? What to wear to the next basketball game and not some black type written words on a piece of paper? Hard to say, but when you’re a hormonal teen, it could have been any number of reasons. The real reason was that I had sights on being a foreign correspondent or work for a large international corporation.
Imagine my surprise when I found that piece of paper a few weeks ago and saw that I scored very high in the creative field. It said I had to ability to be a writer. Wow. Really? And all these years I’ve been an accountant. I never did work in the international field. Maybe one of my characters will one day.
I guess these tests really do have some truth to them. Fast forward a few decades later. Guess what? I am a writer. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think back then when I slipped that paper into a box that I would actually unknowingly fulfill that destiny. Interesting, isn’t it?
4 comments:
From one packrat to another lol. Probably the only reason I have any living space at all is that my mother threw out many things and my husband does too. Although I cry and stamp my foot when I find out, my brain (and not my heart) knows I just shouldn't be trying to keep everything (sigh). I get attached to everything very easily. My husband says one day he is going to come home and find me buried under a pile of books lol.
I'm not a packrat...but I married into a family of them, so I understand your dilemna. Finding that paper brought back a memory of when a handwriting expert looked at my writing and declared I could be an artist or a writer. I remember hoping she was a prophet or a shaman or anything that had a direct link to the publishing company! LOL
She must have been one, either, all or both! I'm glad you found that test in your pack rat haven and realized that you have always been a writer at heart, Kim!
LOL Catslady. But books are a good thing. Carolyn so glad you knew you were going to be a writer at an early age. :)
Tia and Dani are both packrats. Sigh. It's a toss up as to which one of us have the more cluttered office. It always seems to be that whenever you pitch something, sure enough, in a couple of days you need that very thing. Never seems to fail. But agreed, you can't keep everything. Have fun going through your boxes, Kim.
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