moving memories
started packing up our stuff this weekend. as of next week, we’ll be living like nomads, as a friend is coming to collect all our furniture and take it away.
packing is such a bittersweet exercise. the unavoidable culling of personal detrius, sorting out one’s mementos and effects, and ranking their importance. What’s expendable, what’s not reflecting the shifting internal landscape.
i’ve moved 9 times since i left home after high school. i’ve left a trail of belongings like breadcrumbs through 4 cities, 3 countries. artefacts of the lives i used to lead, and my changing priorities. pieces of my old self shed like a skin. what i no longer needed or wanted or loved became junk. objects once infused with sentiment, now refuse.
and it’s a mundane process which drains them of their power – only time. the items i brought over in my suitcase when i first moved here to remind me of home, no longer carry that weight. home is no longer home. and when i revisit the items i left behind in basement boxes, they no longer seem so poignant. mementos less momentus. the attachment eases by degrees with the passing years.
but it’s tough, this paring down to the bare necessities. I’m a thrower by nature, but I’ve done this so many times now, that my instinct is to hold fast. i’m tired of discarding things because I have to. i want some stuff that is *mine*. things that feel like home. things that i keep just for the hell of it, just in case. i want the luxury of the non-essential.
nomadism isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
