In the process of packing up things to move AGAIN (I believe I’m in the 30+ mark for ‘moves within my lifetime’), I am confronted with STUFF. As in, haven’t unpacked this box in years, yet moved it each time with the nice little list taped to the top.
I opened a few boxes to find… proof that I have forgotten way more than I thought I did.
Letters from college roommates. Letters from relatives. Letters from people I barely remember, and some I will never forget.
Letters from my bestest friend ever from grammar school - I had lost track of her in high school (we went to different ones), then my mother ran into her mother at a store, gave her mother my college address to pass along, and we began a correspondence that ended abruptly when the cancer suddenly accelerated and took her down. She was barely 22. I was told about the funeral several days after it actually took place.
I repacked that box and put it in the stack. The shoes, on the other hand - the ten year old shoes that originally cost about ten bucks, with the shredded bows on the toes - those can go away. So can all the used file folders, the miles of paper with illegible notes I scribbled (must have made sense at the time, at least until after I studied for finals), the ancient brick cell phone, and once I figure out who recycles them, the metric ton of floppy disks is totally gone. I found a picture of me with such … ugly hair. Oh, the ‘what was I thinking’ moments multiply fast! I found a dress I wore twenty years ago. A pair of pants… where did I get them? Good grief. They’d fit a ten year old, maybe.
On the other side, I found lots of articles and photocopied bits I am totally going to read again. By the end of this, I’ll have a box of stuff to grab in those odd moments I totally need a distraction from the wild and crazy month I have ahead of me. When things get settled, I’ll be organized. I intend to develop a list of books to read and find a yoga class. Re-do my diet to exclude things that lately have not agreed with my digestion — surprising, how suddenly one day the stomach just wants to reject the thing it used to accept without complaint. And get myself in for a physical, because doggone it all, I want to shed about fifteen pounds and get something that works for the allergies.
Forget New Year’s resolutions. I seem to be making New Life resolutions. “It will all be different when…”
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