Shred this

Yesterday I bought a paper shredder. I'm cleaning out files and boxes of old letters and the recycling bin doesn't seem like an appropriate place to send old stories and friends' words to die.

I like feeding the shredder. The buzz, the neat strips, the finality. Zip, there goes a letter my mother sent me when I was in college. Zap, there goes a postcard from that friend from Albany who disappeared and I don't know where he is. (Break for Google. Back, no luck.) Zip, the third rewrite of the seventh chapter of the novel I never finished. (I have it electronically if I ever am inspired to continue with it.) Zap, there goes a weirdly-worded letter I got a year after college, from the professor with whom I'd had a fling. (A letter I read and reread and reread, never able to really decipher its "hidden" meaning. It was just a letter, I now see.) Zip, the first draft version of that short story that I wrote ten years ago that never moved past "sucking."

I have two bags of shredded paper now. I can't wait until recycling day.