Things are just things. That we love. Grow attached to. Feel a bit possessive of. Can’t imagine our lives without. Become saturated with memories, smells, significance.
Every time I have to move I am forced to confront precisely how many possessions I have, which makes me realize both how blessed I am and how I should weed out more of these superfluous things that fill up the space of my dresser, closet, shelves, room—of my life.
You wouldn’t believe how having to pack everything up and drag it across the country will encourage you to prioritize and figure out what you really care about. My trips from home to school have made me a wizened pro by now. But still…graduating in just a few weeks makes me cringe when I look around my room. Under my bed. In my drawers.
Things just have a way of accumulating, oozing out of spaces, often when you least expect it. It’s like trying to clean out your purse and envisioning throwing away wrappers and receipts and being left with your wallet, phone, lip gloss, sunglasses, and keys. Instead, ticket stubs, Kleenex, pamphlets, granola bars, hair ties, business cards, gum, forgotten notes, and pens just spill out, pile up, and refuse to disappear. I can’t throw them away because I might use them. I don’t want to carry them around because I might not use them. Should I save them? Throw ‘em in a drawer?
I contemplated packing up a suitcase this weekend, full of forgotten items and winter clothes and other inessentials. It’s just one more step en route to that inevitable end date. Oh, how I’d love to shove end dates in a drawer and forget them.
I know packing will be emotional. Nothing is just an item anymore, just a sign of my consumerism, just an accessory. Instead, I pick something up and feel its meanings, its history, the emotions tied up with it. My rain boots that I bought in England and trudged through Venice in. The picture frame my sister made and sent me. The book I bought last year, to use for my thesis. Packing becomes a dizzying array of prioritizing, organizing, and remembering—always remembering.
When I bought it, where I wore it, who I was with when I had it, what I intend to do with it, how I’ve changed since I received it.
One of my art projects this year was to paint a container of some kind—it could be anything, a room, one’s skull, hands cupping water, a train car. What about a suitcase though? Doesn’t it make an excellent self-portrait? A compartment of things that mattered enough to me to move across the country. The things I couldn’t leave behind. The accumulation of my life.
Just a few more weeks and this round of suitcases will be packed. But not quite yet.
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