I sort through a pile of business receipts and put them into files. It’s difficult. So many of them pull an emotional string in me.
A receipt from a bookstore in Kent: I remember waiting in the Court House for two days to find out if I’d been chosen for jury duty. This was just after we Found Out.
An invoice from the book fair that I did in October: There’s a mix of excitement and disappointment associated with that weekend and now there’s a nostalgia for Before.
I pick up an official-looking document with decorative borders. I assume at first that it’s my business license, but then I read the title and I panic. It’s a birth certificate. It’s my birth certificate, but for a moment I think that it’s my child’s and that I’ve forgotten that it has already been born.