Packing away

I stopped and suddenly felt this sadness creep over me. I am surrounded by a mess of boxes, wrapping paper, and two cats who seem to be having the time of their lives playing hide and seek with plastic bags lying around on the floor. The apartment, my home for the last seven years, is slowly emptying. The cupboards,  drawers, and even the fridge, are all being cleaned out and cleared.

It feels as if I am re-reading the story of my life, replaying the records of my family's life. The fragile memories of the past are all being carefully wrapped and packed awei. The delicate momentoes from trips and classes I have taken, dates I have been on, restaurants I have dined in, funerals I have attended, are all being sorted and boxed.

Many years have passed since those summer days
Among the fields of barley
See the children run as the sun goes down
Among the fields of gold
You'll remember me when the west wind moves
Upon the fields of barley
You can tell the sun in his jealous sky
When we walked in fields of gold
--"Fields of gold"

Packing is like retracing traces of how I got to be where I am and who I am now. Packing is shifting through the evidence of the brevity of my thirty something years on this big, big world and piecing together the significance of events, dates, challenges which have given meaning to life. It is an opportunity to meet people again, some of whom were once so very, very dear to my heart and soul and yet have already parted. It is an opportunity to connect, even if momentarily, with the ones have given my life lasting memories of warmth and beauty.

Unhappiness where's when I was young,
And we didn't give a damn,
'Cause we were raised,
To see life as fun and take it if we can.
My mother, my mother,
She hold me, she hold me, when I was out there.
My father, my father,
He liked me, oh, he liked me.
Does anyone care?
--"Ode to my family"

Some items, in order to save space and reduce weight, need to be binned, others need to be recycled. Packing is judging, it is deciding what (...or who) matters, what will continue to matter, and what deserves a chance to continue to be part of me as I make my wei forward in life. Some things that cause too much pain or embarrassment, things associated with people or events who have long faded and paled in significance, are to be  buried and forever disappeared...

Clothes not worn for ages, still lingering with the scent of my youth, my being, are being bagged in the hope they will eventually find they wei to those who can make better use of them. Even after years of neglect, hidden in the pockets of these items of clothing are gems of my past. Crinkled pieces of papers, ticket stubs, half-used chapsticks, packets of tissues and wrappers recording little, bitter sweet  days gone by...

The collection of model airplanes are being disassembled in preparation for relocation to the new hub. Pictures on the wall, some yellowing a little already, others cringing on the sides, but all covered with the dust of time and grease from dinner parties and many countless nights eating in the company of Netflix, still need to be taken off of the walls.

"Written on these walls are the colors that I can't change
Leave my heart open but it stays right here in its cage
I know that in the morning now I see us in the light upon a hill
Although I am broken, my heart is untamed, still
And I'll be gone, gone tonight
The fire beneath my feet is burning bright"
--"The story of my life"

 I pick up another book, another photograph, another magnet from some exotic destination, another stack of letters, papers, statements that together make up the pieces of my life, and I continue to pack.

 

Verge of 34

Just took a long bath and started reading a book. Threw in a bath bar called "Karma". How symbolic for this to wash away the last moments and accumulated karma and grime of 33 years in preparation for 34. The book starts with the descriptive longings of a 17yr old boy, a coming-of-age period of exploration, anxiety and fear, a period in adolescence when you feel like you know so much, yet are excluded and dismissed as a child, and simultaneously feel like you know so little, as the world of university, work, life and all in between lies just beyond your reach. 

Was it a coincidence that earlier today, after a dinner alone at a sushi restaurant, as I walked home, somehow I got the urge to listen to some songs that I began listening to when I was 17? American Pie (Don McLean's and Madonna's modern versions), songs from Evita (particularly Another Suitcase in Another Hall), among others. Songs I would listen and sing to at a time when I was living alone in that home in The Hague, when I lived a quiet and solitary life, when school preoccupied me, as did thoughts of and coming to terms with my sexuality and history, when my family of four had been split in three corners of the world. A time when nightmares haunted me, when the "'void" consumed me, when just around the corner the unknowns of university life and the world before me lured and intimidated me at the same time. What a time it was to be alive. Such carefree, innocent days, they appear to be now. Biking to the beach and sitting on the sand at sunset... Bike rides lost in the dark of the night and in the melody of tunes and lyrics emitting from the MP3 (yes, it's a thing of the past...). 

A long long time ago
I can still remember how
That music used to make me smile
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those people dance
And maybe they'd be happy for a while

But February made me shiver
With every paper I'd deliver
Bad news on the doorstep
I couldn't take one more step

I can't remember if I cried
When I read about his widowed bride
Something touched me deep inside
The day the music died

Fast forward 17 years, here I am in Toronto. Across the Atlantic in Canada, across time and space, across graduation, funerals, celebrations, highlights, trips and nights spent alone and shivering in tears from the loss of dear, dear loved ones gone too soon. Twice that age from that coming-of-age boy at high school, millions of miles behind me, countless stories that took place in hospital wards, lecture halls, and journeys in far awei lands. "I was a lonely teenage broncin' buck", and now? A "young" professional, a millennial, a teacher on the other side of the podium, a cat-owner (and cat-slave). Single still, but that is just the way it is.

And what of 17 years from now? 34 years from now? It dawned on me as I walked home, past the bright lights of the city, past crowds of faceless, anonymous passerbys, I am perhaps well into half of an "average" human life. Who knows how long I have left, how much longer I can think, feel, write, cry, love and feel pain? And what is it that I want from this life? What is it that this life wants from me?

Looking back at this blog, I realised it's been close to a year since my last blog entry (though there are actually dozens of posts I began writing, mostly on my travels and/or at 37,000ft as I am sitting in a cabin and anonymously journeying somewhere in the world, that I have yet to organise and publish...)  It's not that life has come to a halt. Far from it. I've been fortunate to have been offered opportunities and paths that I could not have imagined in my wildest dreams when I sat alone in that living room back in 2001 when I was 17. But, it's true what they say... as you grow older, you seem to lose that "spark", you begin to feel weighed down by ... perhaps work, perhaps inter-personal relationships, by the noise and state of the world... by life itself (doesn't help that I was diagonosed 3 yrs ago with a heart mumur that doctors say make me feel more lethargic and fatigued than normal people as my heart is beating faster than usual...).

Another ditch in the road
You keep moving
Another stop sign
You keep moving on
And the years go by so fast
Wonder how I ever made it through

And the days turn into weeks, weeks turn into months, quickly a year goes by again, and again, and again, leaving you exasperated and wondering where the time went. I often look in the mirrow and wonder who that person is looking back me... I see traces of my mother, my father... I see the wrinkles of time slowly appear on my forehead. I see the light scars from the period when I had acne on my face (...still get some on occasion). I see someone some call "Professor", though often I feel just as clueless as a freshfaced student new to the field... I see someone some say is kind, compassionate and giving, though I often feel so conflicted and cruel in dismissing the plight and burdens of others. I see someone who often just feels the need to shy away, to hide, to be away from people and crowds, while at the same time longing for intimacy, affecting, and a warm, warm embrace that makes me feel safe and  fall asleep so peacefully.


34 years and counting. How far have I come? And how much further have I got to go?