Office Supplies

I still remember the satisfaction of looking at the perfectly stacked cans and boxes after reorganizing our pantry when I was a preschooler. By fifth grade, my mom forwarded me all school emails, asking me to let her know if there was anything that needed follow up, like a signature for a field trip form. I loved this added responsibility and was proud of my ability to manage big parts of my own life. It wasn't long before I discovered the office supply store. I made my family wait endlessly while I carefully searched for the newest organizational resources and the perfect decorative notebooks to use for my ever growing compilation of to-do lists.

I was always the girl in my class who had her folders organized in rainbow order and would frequently win the weekly award for cleanest chair bag. I still consider myself an organized person today, but I don’t enjoy it nearly as much as I did when I was younger. I took my organization very seriously and was on the border of being very annoying about it. For entertainment, I would ask my mom if I could organize her closet and spend hours rearranging everything by color, enjoying every minute of it.

As I got older, my organizational skills became more practical. My horse is very high maintenance and requires blanket changes for different temperatures, his feet to be trimmed every 5 weeks, and a lot of other things like getting his teeth done and getting his shots and immunizations on time. My barn that I board him at is a self-care barn so the only thing they do for me is feed him and turn him out every day; I am in charge of arranging all of the farrier and vet appointments myself. My parents are not very knowledgeable about horses so they leave it to me to make sure that my horse stays healthy. It is a lot to keep track of and I have to be really organized about it. Being in charge of the wellbeing of a live animal is a lot of responsibility, and I have definitely made mistakes. A few summers ago, I had a big horse show coming up and I forgot to schedule the farrier to come out and re-shoe my horse’s feet. Because of that, he was not very sound because his feet were too long and we weren’t able to do well in the competition. My trainer was angry at me for not getting it done, but I learned from the situation and now I always make sure that my horse’s feet get done in the right amount of time before shows.

While I wouldn’t say that I am embarrassed by the fact that I used to obsessed with office supplies, it isn’t exactly something that I would bring up voluntarily in conversations. Although I may not be able to entertain myself by organizing pantries anymore, I can see these skills being useful to me for the rest of my life. Whatever I end up doing, I know that I will be able to stay organized.