But I *Need* It & It's Useful! I Can't Chuck It!

Originally, my plan was to continue going through my closet. It's a lot of storage, but also a lot of, well, things that need to be there (which, by "need" I mean momentos and such, paperwork that you keep in order to still consider yourself an adult in this country, and things I just can't go through (because of the mental/emotional trickery with them)).
And I looked at the closet. Pawed through it. Then sat on the bed and said "ugh, no energy," which was mostly a cop out, but also true, because I ended up taking a nap later in the day.

Before the nap, though, I went through my pens and pencils and sticky notes. Which was somehow easier than going through Pokemon and Magic: the Gathering cards.
And, amazingly enough, I got quite a large chunk of stuff together that can be chucked.

Now, I love paper and stationary and pencils and notepads and notebooks and just anything associated with that. So the idea of effectively cutting my collection in half seems a bit crazy (probably less so, once we take into account I actually got some new pens over the weekend).

There are plenty of pens that I've been holding onto just because I had them. Pens are useful! And disposable! So, eventually, all of the pens I enjoy using right now will die. And I will need those other pens that I've hidden away!

Except, hey, ya, guess who has a few Coleto pens? And, oh ya, guess who has a fountain pen? And, hey, those kinds of pens are, well, refillable. There is no reason to keep basic blue Bic pens laying around for when every other pen is dead...because I will always find some way to replace dead pens before I get anywhere near to needing to use those basic blue Bic pens.

The same goes for notepads and things. I've got plenty that I just don't really like. But I had to keep them, because some day I'm going to need a piece of paper and that's going to be the easiest thing to reach for. Except, they are in the same drawer as all of the note pads that I actually enjoy using. Page flags that I've held onto in case I need them, even though I hardly use page flags in the first place, and will always reach for the ones that are either cuter or sturdier than the ones I'm holding onto for the "oh no, I need it's".

I had even saved the little box that my fountain pen ink came in, so I would be able to know which one it was, if I wanted to repurchase it. Except, you know, I could just Google what the darn bottle says. Or, even better, find it again in my JetPens order history. Which do you think is easier? I threw out the box. Because it really was silly that I had kept it.

I'm down to, effectively, one pen case. I had a casefull, as well as almost a cupfull. There are no pens hanging out in my drawers. The pile of notepads is cut by quite a lot, and I will actually be able to grab one out of my stack of drawers without having to dig.

I didn't need all of those pens in the first place. Or all those notepads. One would have been fine. Heck, even two. But I got more and more, for one reason or another, over time. And while I do like having them all (and I mean all), I will never get through them before I find something even better to replace them with.

I will probably end up with more of these things as time goes on, but hopefully not before I'm actually running out. Until then, I've got plenty to keep me going through, probably, most of 2016, if not longer.

~Havok