I have a junk drawer.
Actually, that feels dishonest. I have a few.
There. Now that we’ve established this is a safe space...
You know the drawer I’m talking about. The one that starts out innocently enough. A couple of extra batteries. A pen. Some tape. A screwdriver you don’t feel like walking all the way back to the toolbox.
And then somehow, over time, it becomes home to everything that doesn’t quite belong anywhere else.
Mine has batteries of questionable life expectancy. Pens that may or may not work. Random charging cords. Command hooks. A tiny screwdriver. Rubber bands. A tape measure. Birthday candles. Things I’m fairly certain came with something important, although what that important thing was has long since left my memory.
And keys.
So many keys.
Keys of all shapes and sizes. Tiny ones. Big ones. Old ones. Keys I haven’t used in years and could not, under any circumstances, tell you what they open. And yet I keep every single one. Because someday I might need one.
Someday I am going to be standing in front of a lock, suddenly remember the drawer, rummage through my collection, and one of those keys is going to slide in perfectly. I have absolutely no evidence to support this theory. Still keeping the keys.
The funny thing is, my junk drawer doesn’t actually look messy to me. It’s almost neatly packed in its own little organized chaos. I know where things are. I know what can be pushed aside and what’s probably underneath it. There is a system here, even if I am apparently the only person who understands it.
Someone else opens it and thinks, Good Lord. Eek.
I open it and think, What?
Every other drawer in the house has a category. Silverware goes here. Dish towels go there. Office supplies have a place. The things that are easy to name and organize get their own little designated homes. The junk drawer exists because some things resist categorization. And I kind of love that. Because people do, too.
We have all these easy ways of describing ourselves. What we do. Where we live. Who we belong to. Mom. Daughter. Partner. Friend. Nurse. Leader. Writer. All true. Just nowhere near the whole story. Because then there are all the other pieces.
I’m an introvert who really loves people. I can spend an entire afternoon happily by myself and another one sitting at a café watching complete strangers and imagining their lives. I can run a meeting, make a hard decision, and then get ridiculously excited over the perfect bunch of flowers at Trader Joe’s. I was a musician long before I was a nurse. And a nurse long before I ever thought about being a writer. I love beautiful spaces where everything has a place. I also apparently have several junk drawers.
See? Organized chaos. And maybe that’s why I like that drawer so much. It has room for all the things that don’t fit anywhere else.
The random hobby you became weirdly obsessed with. The thing you know way too much about that has absolutely nothing to do with what you do for a living. An old dream you haven’t quite been able to throw away. Something you loved ten years ago that still feels like you. Something you discovered last Tuesday that somehow also feels like you.
The pieces that make perfect sense to us and occasionally make other people think, Huh. I didn’t know that about you. I love those pieces. Maybe because they’re usually the interesting ones.
The ones we discover over coffee after we’ve exhausted the normal questions. The ones that make someone light up in the middle of a story. The ones that make us say, “Wait. You too?” They don’t necessarily need their own drawer. They don’t need a label. They can just live there together in their own little organized chaos.
Some things will eventually find their place. Some probably won’t. And some might sit there for years, right next to a half-used roll of tape and a key to God knows what.
I think I’m okay with that. Actually, I think I like it. Not every part of us needs to fit neatly somewhere else.
Sometimes it can just belong because it belongs to us.
Which brings me back to those keys.
Still keeping them.
You never know. 😊
