Moving truck arrived on Saturday morning. Two days early. ‘Cause let’s just hurry up and get on with this. ‘Cause who wouldn’t want to do that ASAP?
So into a little apartment come all of those boxes so carefully packed at home. With every trip up the stairs comes a piece of our puzzle. Like the squares of a Rubik’s cube that we try to manipulate into order.
We cannot fit our life into this new space! It’s too big for here. No number of Tetris-like maneuvers is going to make this work. All of these things that are part of our everyday life. These are not long-forgotten relics from the dark recesses of an unreachable shelf. My mother’s big griddle for the five dozen chocolate chip pancakes I made after every sleepover after every middle school dance. The Corningware I sent home with leftovers for my brother. The birdhouse that hung on the front porch. Accessories for rooms we don’t have anymore. Where do these things fit in now?
These boxes don’t contain mere things. They hold memories. Thousands, millions, an infinity of memories. Each one fragile, each one as delicate as a spiderweb and just as intricate. Individually wrapped, as if they are separate things, as if thin sheets of paper can create boundaries between them, can keep them from returning to the jumbled mess that is/was our life.
I open the boxes as if they are gifts. With great care I remove each item and hold it lovingly, still wrapped, in my hands, as if it was a swaddled new born baby. I consider it’s shape, it’s weight, and try to guess what it might be. Then with anticipation I peel away the paper. And there is that thing! That beautiful familiar thing. That thing I used to do that thing I loved to. That thing I loved to look at. That thing I passed by everyday on my way from that room to that room. That thing made by someone dear to me. That thing that reminds me of someone I love. That thing that always made me smile. With each box I grow more homesick. Every layer of paper I peel away seems to seal my fate. I am not going home.