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.