Statements ( #AtoZChallenge )

Say what you want, but whatever you say is your statement.   Please make it mean something or make it funny...

A Statement About Statements

         Back before this past December I had several boxes of bank and credit card statements going back to the eighties.  After years of delay I finally culled through those boxes and reduced my statement collection into two relatively small boxes, labeled and stacked together on a shelf in my garage.  This was achieved by getting rid of envelopes, advertising inserts, and pages with no relevant information on them.

         You might wonder why I would continue to keep these statements from so far back.  These records of purchases long past and other money flow in bank accounts that no longer exist seems rather non-functional--at least from any standpoint of personal finances.   But for me these statements are a record of something different than my spending and saving habits in the past:  They represent a part of my past life.   Cumulatively taken, these statements are like a diary that reconnects me to who I was and what I was doing.

        If arranged in chronological order, I can read through the statements as though they were a journal that I had kept during that time period.   I can see times of frivolity as well as tough financial straits, I can see what was purchased and where and when.  By deduction and memory I can figure a lot about the times surrounding the statements.

          Now that I've rid myself of the junk portions (it all went into my recycle bin) I have a compact record of facts that I can relate to emotions and events of another time of my life.  This goes into my research library.  This is the memoirist in me--the writer.  Those statements can help set the scenes for stories and even tell stories themselves.

          I don't know if I've convinced anyone other than me that I have some good reason to keep these boxes of statements.   It probably doesn't matter much to anyone but me since these boxes represent my history and my research files for some later time.  That's why I think they are worth keeping for a while at least.  Besides, who is to say whether reading a great or even average novel is more satisfying than reading a stack of receipts.  It all comes down to the story being told and what that story means to the reader--a reader who might also be a writer.

Has a credit card or bank statement ever inspired you to imagine a story?   What kinds of things might  credit card charges tell you if you were looking at someone else's statement?   Have you ever gone back to look at the charges on an old statement?