Junk Drawer

I think every home has a junk drawer.

Maybe every home in America.

Maybe every home in the world.

You know the one.

Old batteries. Keys that apparently open absolutely nothing. Rubber bands. Band-Aids. Two hundred pens, three of which work. Loose change that has probably been there since the Clinton administration. Staples. Thumbtacks. A birthday candle. A mysterious screw that feels important enough to save but not important enough to identify.

And occasionally a piece of candy that has somehow become part of the fossil record.

How did any of this get there? More importantly, how did we all know this was where it belonged?

Nobody teaches you about the junk drawer.

There is no orientation.

No realtor walks you through the kitchen and says, “Beautiful granite countertops, stainless-steel appliances, and this drawer right here is where you will eventually store seventeen dead batteries, six takeout menus, and a key to a car you sold in 2009.”

We just know.

And it isn’t only kitchens. Every professional desk has one too.

You can have degrees hanging on the wall. Certificates framed perfectly. A fancy title on the door. A desk that suggests you have your entire life under control.

Open the second drawer on the left.

Chaos.

Apparently, human beings need one place where we can put things we don’t know what to do with.

Things we might need someday. Things we used once for approximately three seconds and...things we are fairly certain have no purpose whatsoever but throwing them away feels strangely irresponsible.

The junk drawer is basically the Island of Misfit Toys for household objects.

And lately I have been thinking that maybe we have another one. Not in the kitchen...

Inside us. I know I do. Probably more than one.

I have thoughts about yesterday. Worries about tomorrow. Things that already happened and cannot be changed. Things that have not happened and may never happen.

Conversations I replay. Decisions I second-guess.

Still, there I am.

Thinking.

Replaying.

Revisiting.

Taking the same thought out of the drawer, looking at it from every possible angle, and putting it right back.

Maybe you do it too.

We call it planning.

We call it processing.

Sometimes it is.

And sometimes we are just rummaging.

A few weeks ago I cleaned out the junk drawer in my kitchen.

I was ruthless. Dead batteries? Gone.

Pens that didn’t work? Gone.

Expired coupons? Gone.

Mystery keys? Those were harder.

There is something about a key that makes you think, This could be important.

Important to what? No idea.

But apparently I am one unidentified lock away from catastrophe.

Still, I threw them out.

Then I organized everything.

Pens together. Tape together. Scissors where scissors belong.

For one glorious moment, I had conquered the junk drawer.

I opened it several times that day just to admire my work.

This is growth and who I am now.

Approximately two weeks later, it looked exactly the way it had before. Maybe worse.

And I stood there looking at it and realized something.

Of course it filled up again. That is what junk drawers do.

Life keeps handing us things.

A worry, disappointment, a what if.

A should have. A maybe someday.

And without even noticing, we toss another thing into the drawer.

Then another.

Then another.

Until one day we cannot close it.

Maybe that is what happens inside us too.

We keep everything.

Every possibility.

Every concern.

Every conversation.

Every problem that belongs to yesterday and tomorrow.

And then we wonder why there is no room left for today.

I am starting to think peace is not an empty drawer. I don’t think that exists.

Life is too messy. Something will always get tossed in.

The goal might simply be to notice what we are keeping.

Some things need our attention.

Some things really do need to be dealt with.

But not everything deserves permanent storage.

Some things belong in yesterday.

Some things can wait until tomorrow.

And some things probably should have been thrown away years ago.

Maybe every once in a while we need to open the drawer and ask:

Do I still need this?

Not because yesterday did not matter.

Not because tomorrow does not matter.

But because today does too.

The drawer will fill again.

That is what drawers do.

Maybe the work is simply noticing when it gets too full.

Keeping what matters.

Letting go of what doesn’t.

Yesterday already had its turn.

Tomorrow will get one too.

Maybe today deserves a little more room.