Leaving on a jet plane... err, in a Civic...

by snaggle at 05:26 PM on July 29, 2004

There’s a bible verse that runs something like ”But when childhood ended it was time to put away childish things.” Okay, I don’t know exactly what it is or what it refers to, but it’s been running through my head lately due to my imminent departure from my home since summer 1998.

A lot of things have changed over the past six years. I’m (almost) a college graduate (minus a couple papers that need to be finished); the world itself has changed, both from my perspective and from everyone else’s (thank you, 9/11.) Perhaps more importantly, I have changed. Older, wiser (?), more focused, more dedicated, more stable, more understanding. And I think most importantly, a lot of me is the same. I’m still fiercely idealistic, not jaded, ready to tackle the world and whatever it has to throw in my path.

Moving has always been a depressing time for me, but this time, as I prepare to move not just apartments within Ames but move away from this college town forever, I’m doing what I should have done quite a while ago: sort through everything I own. The past five or six times I’ve moved it’s been a very last-minute affair, filled with throwing things temporarily in boxes, unpacking what I can with what time I have, and then living my life with some things still in boxes, unlooked-at. This time, before I pack anything away, I’m giving everything one long, hard look and asking myself “Do I need this? Will I want it when I arrive finally at my destination in LA?” So far I’ve already eliminated eight trashbags-full of random accoutrements of, honestly, not just the past six years but much longer than that. For the first time, I went through my closet with a fine-toothed comb and separated the wheat from the chaff. (Indeed, most of the chaff was not even couture at the time of its purchase and why its remained in its place in my closet is a testament only to laziness. I would beg the immigrant child’s practice of retaining things for the purpose of exhibiting the possession of things, but as I’ve never really lacked for anything I can’t defer to that cultural phenomenon. Instead, it’s only Exhibit A for a lack of desire and determination on my part to face my own past. It’s the fact that everything, every piece of paper I throw out, every ticket stub, every credit card receipt, carries its own story. I remember where I was when I last wore that shirt, how that pair of pants made me feel, who I was with at that movie, why I paid $30 for that meal.

But this time it’s a little different. Usually I don’t sift through every last molecule, separating the useful from the useless: its always been a frantic piling-into-boxes. So at the end of that process, I am left with the incredible weight of my material possessions and, worse than seeing your life reduced to your résumé, I see years distilled into boxes and I think “Is this me? Is this what I own? Is this what I am?”

I expected this time to be worse. But instead, I sort through the random papers: the art history notes from the course-from-hell, which I proceeded to earn an A; the unintelligible, half-asleep notes from the boring-as-hell course that I proceeded to drop when I realized that Computer Science was not my future; I laugh at a random flyer from Rome, remembering the slightly drunken time we were wandering the streets and it was handed to me; I smile at the infantile drawings I produced during my first drawing classes and smile more broadly seeing the changes that have progressed as my training continued.

This time, instead of being depressed by my past, I’ve faced it and I’ve realized that I’ve come through it okay. I’ve come through my rough times, my seclusion periods, my insecure times, the tail end of teenage angst, my hospital stay, and, though I may have more than a few battle wounds, I realize this:

I did it.