shredding the baggage

The town shredding day is quickly approaching.  I decided to take some time this morning to go through my papers and rid myself of papers that I no longer need.  I'm a bit of a pack-rat; I have papers going back 8+ years...but at one point, I thought we had to keep papers for 7 years for tax reasons - I'll have to look into that to see if that is true.

Anyway, I quickly filled a file box before I found a 2-3 inch file folder from 2006 with all the SI drama.  I had printed emails between the two of them about her moving into her house since where she was living was being sold, talks of trips, about moving my stuff out, about their engagement and of course copies all the credit card bills of all her spending. Add in pictures of him (I thought I destroyed all the printed copies, but yet, there was one lurking) and other pictures and a story I once wrote about how much I loved him and then 30+ pages about the disaster that came afterwards.  I took the time and I read through 80% of the 2-3 inch file.  At first it didn't bother me, it was so long ago, but when I was done and looking to see what else to do with my day, I became sad.  I am such a sweet girl, I didn't deserve any of that to happen to me.  I debated keeping the file, but then I threw it in the box with everything else that will be shredded in 3 weeks.

Now, if only I was brave enough to delete the 300+ emails I had with SI and that I had with the mistress.  I  don't know why I still have them.  At this point, I don't need the proof for anything - he will never be in my life again and I am not out to tell her or his family that he was still lying to her back in 2006.  Yes, perhaps I should do that too.  Oh and I have other paper, pictures and passport copies in my safe, that needs to go too and what about all those electronic pictures.  While I might have kept all that stuff for the purpose of bringing about justice, I would not have jeopardized creating so much drama to hurt someone else - even if they destroyed me...I am not really into revenge.  I just didn't want to be the 'crazy' ex-girlfriend...having that information just proved it wasn't my fault/me being crazy.  When someone lies to protect themselves, the lies they tell other people about, in this case me, are hurtful....all these innocent people then perceive me to have been crazy/psychotic/disinterested/mean/unemotional/etc when the truth was the opposite.

Between ridding my life of the SI disaster and the disappearance of ManFriend, the universe should be happy that I am cleansing all that negativity out of my life.  It's like they never existed in my life, it will all just be my memories.

but god forbid I get Alzheimer's (it runs in my family), and those are the years I relive and talk about to my family and visitors.  How unfair.