me and my stuff.

I'm leaving Philadelphia in a few weeks. I've started packing up the room that I've occupied for the past two years and its sad to realize how easily you can erase the fact that you ever belonged somewhere. I've slowly untaped pictures from the walls and removed clothes from the closet hangers and packed books in boxes. With every item I seal beneath cardboard and tape I feel a piece of myself leaving this place. Most people might not feel such an attachment to a room, but I'm always unnerved by change. It's difficult for me to float; I need a solid base from which to go out into the world from, and to come back to. For now, I guess my next landing spot will remain a mystery until I return from my travels.

Another thing that came to my attention while packing -not that I didn't understand this about myself before, I was just reminded- is that I'm a complete hoarder. Not in the normal way where people save old stuffed animals and CD's.

I collect gas station receipts. Tags from clothes I bought six years ago.

Candles that have no wick left, just old circles of dusty wax.

I know, its unnecessary. However, while I probably should have thrown all of those things out, this whole packing-up-my-life thing made me realize how so many of those random odds and ends were saved for particular, significant reasons. Like, who ever knew that saving a tag from a dress I bought in high school would bring back the memory of my friend Julie and I blasting Mariah Carey songs on our way to the Exton mall- and the feeling that accompanied the person I was then? I wasn't who I am now, and I love that it made me remember how things change.

Anyway, the point is I save everything. It may seem pointless, but to me my things aren't about their intrinsic value, rather they carry a meaning beyond that, of the time and place when they first belonged to me.

One day, I'll have a real place of my own where all of this "stuff" can actually have a permanent home. I'll plaster my walls with every birthday card, magazine cutout, framed photo, and hand written note I've ever gotten, next to all of my gas station receipts (I'm considering framing them, just to be weird).

:)