What’s Hiding in Those Small, Dark Corners?

Another school year has drawn to a close. Teachers and students are cleaning out their desks, discarding some things, returning others, and taking home what’s left. I remember those days! But, what is hiding in those small, dark desk corners?

In those far-off years of my girlhood, I actually sat at a wooden desk, the kind with attached seat. When leaving school at the end of the day, I always flipped the seat up and pushed it down every morning. The desk had a long groove at the top for my pencil and a hole on the right side for an ink bottle. Ink bottles were pretty much a thing of the past by the time I was old enough to go to school, but the desk with the hole remained. These desks were heavy, solid things. Some of them were on steel runners that were bolted to the desk in front and behind. Some stood alone.

Anyway, back to cleaning them out at school’s end. Invariably, I’d find something wadded into a dark corner that I had forgotten about. Evidently, I had stuck it back, thinking it would be useful but it wasn’t. So it went into the waste basket. In fact, I had such a tendency to save things, thinking they might come in handy, that it was a wonder I had any room left for books. A lot of discarded clutter went into the trash when it was time to hunt through the crevices and corners of my desk.

Sometimes life is like that long ago school desk. I tend to hang onto things that are of no value whatsoever. In fact, they take up room that could be put to better use. Old hurts, slights that are imagined or real, mistakes, heartaches, angry words I’ve spoken or others have spoken to me, worries, all the attempts that have failed, they are all there, in the corners and crevices of memory. Now, how silly is that! Life is filled with second chances, hope, and worthwhile thoughts. As St. Paul said, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. (Philippians 4:8)

Sometimes, I’m not aware I’ve kept such useless things until something happens to jog a tiresome memory. Then, the old pain surfaces. At such times, I need to remind myself that I’ve better things to think about; out with the negative; in with the positive.  Mentally, I crumple it up and toss it away. Trash-can worthy experiences are only clutter. And, as with all clutter, they belong in the trash can of forgetfulness.