I’m going to tell you why I hate moving. It’s because I’m compelled to dump the thousand pounds of paperwork that I’ve hauled everywhere. Not only that, but also because I take the time to read it.
And I just shouldn’t.
I just threw away my entire fundraising career. Believe me, I have no plans to return to nonprofit management/development. But I also got rid of the cell phone and credit card numbers of some of Pittsburgh’s most prolific donors. Why I kept that info is beyond me, but I have notebooks upon notebooks of telephone conversation notes, contact information, budgets, timelines and whatnot. It’s amazing, really, what I have accomplished in my lifetime. It’s a good reminder that I set out to be special and I didn’t let myself get in the way of that goal too often.
And then, in the process of digging, we unearth the personal writings. The stuff written in margins and at the back of those reporter’s steno books that I adore so much. And it makes a girl realize how far she’s come, yet how grown-up she was when she didn’t feel like it at the time.
But my observations and such are so timeless, like I knew I was going to want to write a book about it someday. Which I will, I promise. The world hasn’t met me yet, but I always knew I’d want to introduce myself someday, somehow.
Anyway, I wrote this when I was 25: