Making ‘piece’ with the past

Shredders are great. The Wonder Woman claims to have hers hooked up to the mail slot at her home. The mail gets delivered straight to the shredder.

No junk mail. No bills.

Many people are getting shredders for less mischievous reasons — to prevent identity theft. I joined that number recently, happily shredding records, anything I no longer had a use for. It was like making a clean break with my past, if such a thing were possible.

Shredding has become a national obsession. The last vice president, Dick Cheney, was famous for having an urge to shred. His successor, Joe Biden, may want to shred, too, although in Biden’s case it would be newspaper accounts of his foot-in-mouth episodes.

According to the “Washington Monthly,” federal expenditures on paper shredding increased 500 percent after President George W. Bush Jr. III Inc. took office. Unfortunately, the ticker tape parades and Iraq War victory celebration didn’t pan out.

Now we’ve got a new shredder-in-chief, Barack Obama. New party. New old war.

With the economy in the tank and the war marching inexorably on, the White House continues shredding the present. Much of my shredding, by contrast, is about the past.

Once in a while I get the urge to rid myself of the past, piece by piece — illness, death, family dysfunction, battles with the IRS.

After my late wife died — almost two years ago now — I made a shrine in her memory. Trees were planted hither and yon to salute her contributions to the animal kingdom.

That first year, I was urged to not move from my home or job, or to start a romance. I followed that advice religiously.

But sometimes I just wanted to turn the page. I wanted to start over, totally new, without constant reminders of the bad times. I wanted a totally new home, new furniture, new car, new bed, bath and beyond.

Now, most of the time, I can live with the past. I am happy with the strength it has given me. Most challenges seem puny by comparison to those I have already faced.

Time, it seems, heals almost everything. The bigger point is, you need to give time, time.

Each of us is a montage of all the things that have happened to us up to this point. It’s what makes us unique. It’s why we see the world as we do.

We can’t shred our past, and for that we should be thankful. There’s a chance we won’t repeat past mistakes. And there’s a chance we’ll launch ourselves into a future that is brighter than we ever imagined — if we can get the bills we shredded taped back together and paid for.

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