Packin' up, gettin' rid of stuff - Pt. 1

When I was younger -- maybe seven or eight because I was old enough to take on some chores but too young to really see the point -- I would take a long time to clean my room. Once you couldn't see the floor anymore, my parents would give me the ultimatum: clean it up or we throw it away. Sometimes, to add dramatic effect, my dad would even come in with a large, black garbage bag and start rifling through my stuff. He used this tactic to speed up the process because I would take forever.

Mainly because I spent a lot of time looking at and playing with the things I was supposed to be putting away. I'd start in one corner of the room, find something I hadn't seen in a while, and then make a day of it. Maybe I'd rearrange my dollhouse, put all of my Polly Pockets in a row, or make a new city out of Legos.

When I got older -- maybe twelve or thirteen because I was young enough to still have to clean my room but too old to have many toys -- my procrastination was fueled by long-lost diary entries or old stories that I had to revisit and reflect upon. This would usually turn into me pulling more things out of the depths of my closet, rather than putting them away.

Thus, packing up my 22-year-old life proves no different. Plus I'm a pack-rat. So I still have those diaries and short stories. Only now they sit under new short stories,

poems,
research papers,
newspaper articles,
letters,
ticket stubs,
fortune cookie fortunes,
old cell phones,
class notes,
birthday cards,
pictures,
and even old, empty packets of birth control pills.

I like to think that everything has a memory attached to it. But most of this shit has just become something that invokes the same memory: "Oh, that happened."

So I'm trying to force myself to have higher standards regarding what I choose to keep. I'm also trying to let myself just have memories instead of evidence.

There are still going to be a lot of unnecessary things that I pack up and take with me when I leave Philly. But the number of boxes is getting smaller.

And looking at things while I pack them up is still fun. Here are some past-life pictures for y'all to enjoy:

That's me in 5th grade, eating my government-provided lunch. To my right is my best friend from elementary and middle school. She died last October; so I mourn moments like this.

That's me in 7th grade. Playin' ball.

I'm the 16-year-old sitting on the ground to the left. This was my first time ever on any coast -- Wildwood, NJ. We were there as a girl scout troop, part of a larger camping trip at the shore. My mom is the lady in the white sweatshirt behind me to my right. My troop leader is the woman on the right side of the picture wearing a fisherman's hat and a green t-shirt. She died last August; but I am glad that I got to tell her how much she meant to me years before.

Still at the shore -- this time in Cape May, NJ. For about a year, I really loved wearing this purple fedora.

Our first trip to Spain in high school. That's 18-year-old Elliot standing in front of a windmill in Castilla-La Mancha.

That's me, looking larger than life.

Note the bicycle tube belt.

I put up a few of these because I don't think I've seen them since we went to Spain in 2007. Makes me psyched to return in a few months.