My afternoon in the cupboard contemplating the passage of time

Procrastinate (verb) to postpone; to put off to another time; to delay; to hold back.

I have been suffering with a terrible case of the above this week brought on by the thought of several menial tasks I must complete in my office. The organisation for which I slave work has just finished a long phase of restructuring, and whilst I am grateful not to be in receipt of my P45 (like a lot of my colleagues) it has meant that the geographical area that I cover as a Community Development Officer for a learning disability charity has changed.

I handed over my pristine, well organised folders from my old patch to new team members, unaware that my predecessors have left me with files dating back to 1983 that were in serious need of culling. I managed to put this boring and tedious job off until Wednesday afternoon as I had more pressing matters to attend to e.g. browsing the internet for shoes, stalking celebrities on Twitter and updating my status on Facebook. However by yesterday afternoon it was starting to look like I was really taking the piss. So equipped with the shredder and recycle bin I embarked upon this arduous task.

The cupboard in which the files are stored hasn’t been touched since last September and was full of cob webs. The stale air immediately started playing havoc with my acute dust allergy. I really should have got the health and safety officer to complete a risk assessment before I went in but I don’t know who that person is and they’re probably based at National Centre in London anyway.

Most of the files were full of irrelevant, out dated notes, memos and faxes on yellowing paper. There were a series of letters dated March 2002 apologising for the distress caused by an inappropriate entry on the internet browser favourites, I was intrigued and wanted to know more! There was many an invite to social evenings, summer fayres and Christmas dinners from over a decade ago. I found myself contemplating how those events had gone and whether everyone had enjoyed themselves. I flung most of it straight into the waste paper bin but I kept getting drawn into things. It struck me that a lot of the content was actually about the passage of people with learning disabilities lives and I wondered where they were now.

One thing I read said:

As a member of (name of club), Thursday evenings are very special for Susan. This is the most important weekly opportunity for her to put on her best bib and tucker, take special care with her appearance and make doubly sure that her coach is available to take her to the ball and collect her again at the appointed hour. Failure to do so would mean the most bitter of disappointment.

It was dated 25th May 1995 and came from a file for a club that has long since ceased to exist. I hoped that Susan still had a place to go which offered her opportunities for new experiences and personal development, a place where she can enjoy enough space and freedom to do her own thing, where her circle of friends and acquaintances reaches out beyond her immediate family; and a place where innocence and personal limitations would not be abused or misunderstood. I honestly hope that place is within the wider community where she is included like any other.

And so now there is a bin sitting in the corridor of my office building that is full of bits of paper with the words mentally retarded or mentally handicapped typed on them. These terms were thankfully deemed politically incorrect in the nineties although many people still use them through ignorance. I will be filling my files with information about Personalisation, Inclusion and Valuing People and who knows what my successor will have to say about that in years to come.