« Weird. | Healthcare Disparities » |
My walls are close to bare, the photos that have marched along the borders of my closet and across my wall for the four years I've had my own little space in the house have been taken down, the stickytack scraped off their backs and balled up, and the pictures have been placed in a little baggie that awaits transport to its new residence. How times change. I had no idea that it would feel this odd to take down everything in my life, pack it up in a box, and move it ten minutes away. It's not far, or foreign, or anything.. just very strange. As I was packing and Mark was typing out coverletters and working on his freelance projects at the same time, the sound of his typing and my thoughts were driving me crazy, and every CD I own that's worth anything to me is already on the shelf at the apartment. I shoved some CD I had lying around into the tray to try and drown out my brain as I worked. It helped only somewhat.
Mark did this earlier this year, and while I was heartbroken for him at traveling and leaving to go so far away to come live closer to me, I didn't understand at all the depth of what it must have been to pack up and go. I still don't, still won't, since I am not moving far away from family, but I feel like the initial sensation may be at least somewhat familiar.
It's strange living here, knowing I have two and a half weeks left in this funny little green room, and trying to pack everything away - what will I need within the next two weeks that must be packed last-minute? I almost have no idea. So I guess and pack and throw away and give away and most of it I really don't miss. I have, however, looked through nearly every card I've ever gotten as I've sorted things out, and I can't believe how much people love such a wretched person like me. It blows my mind. And I remember, I think, getting all of them.
So it's strange. My room is almost kinda clean. I mostly have odds and ends and doodads lying around that will probably just be given away, so as to start new and afresh in life, with minimal clutterage. I can't help shaking that feeling that life, though, will be very different. Maybe not in the way people think it will be, where I change personality or start only talking about baking casseroles, or begin wearing denim jumpers and asking around the young marrieds groups about curriculums for my as-of-yet-non-existent-hypothetical-child-to-be, but just in the way that it's a new type of life, a change from the past twenty-one years, a way to have a ready-on-hand friend around at almost all times. I'm digging that. I'm loving cleaning out and throwing out and saving only the precious and sentimental items that bring me the most joy and the best memories. I'm looking forward to ridding myself of all the useless crap I've somehow managed to stash away over the years and start afresh with my trusty rusties along for the ride. I'm looking forward to having my friends over *my* house, where I can feed them and show them hospitality to in some way make a dent in the hefty hospitality-usage tab that I've rung up in their lives for all this time.
Things I remember... Lying on the floor in a sleeping bag when the room was only frame and plywood, hoping and awaiting my own space that had not yet been finished. Writing secrets on the plywood with Sar, knowing it would be boarded over with hardwood flooring. Painting green with Sar and painting on my jeans, the grin she had on her face in the picture of her up on a ladder, paint roller in hand, entirely covered in green. Phonecalls made and taken late in the night from my futon, back when staying awake late wasn't as difficult as it is now. Listening to Sarah Jo and Handzel laugh and talk on the bottom bunk in the darkness, during one of my last sleepovers with them before we all went different ways to go back to school. squinting at my monitor to watch movies with Drew, Chaz, Stephen, and Sarah Jo all crammed on my bunks with me. Writing papers in the darkness of the midnight morning, hot chocolate steaming against the glow of the monitor and James keeping me company over instant messenger as I made substance out of thought. Studying for my nursing boards on my futon, curtains closed, the headphones Mark gave me blocking out all sound but the mellow, throbbing tones of Massive Attack. Packing clothes into "one carry-on and one personal item" to go to Arizona, Virginia, Honduras, Virginia, Virginia, Virginia, Washington, Virginia. Unstoppable tears of heartbrokenness on the phone after leaving Virginia newly-engaged to watch my Yiayia pass away. Unstoppable tears this Wednesday night as Mark and I read through many of the cards and I unexpectedly came across one signed, "To Cassie, all my love, xoxoxo, Yiayia." Waking every morning to a million stuffed pandas around me. Drowning in God's goodness, music washing over me, praying and waiting and wishing and thinking.
I'm looking forward while looking back at the same time.