Packing Up

I am almost done with the packing. Just a few more boxes and everything I've collected over the last few years should be put away and ready to move home.

The first time things between Irch and fell apart, I got a box. I filled that box with everything he'd given me, all the letters and little nicknacks and presents. I couldn't stand to look at them, and so I boxed them up and put them on the highest shelf in my closet and didn't look at them again until things looked like Irch and I might have another chance.

I took the box down, and started going through it again, reading each of the letters again, and running my hands over each little item inside the box letting the memories of each thing fill my mind, and it made me feel good that I'd held on to all of it. Because I could see how far we came from.

This time I put everything back in the box, there are more letters this time and more little things, anything else and the box would be too small. I resisted the urge to go through it again, to read the letters and post cards again. I don't think I could stand it.

As I've been cleaning out the apartment I've been throwing things into the box that were from him. And tonight I thought I'd gotten everything, so I taped up the box.

Of course now, hours later, I keep finding things that he gave me. Letters he sent that were hiding under papers and things that have so become a part of my room that I didn't notice that they were from him.

And it just seems like no matter how many times I open that box again, there will always be something else I need to put in there, something that reminds me of him. That brings back a memory, that pulls me from the present back into that time when things seemed perfect.

I just want to pack it all away, all the things and memories and emotions. I just want to pack them away so I don't have to feel them anymore, I don't have to remember, or feel. But it doesn't seem like there will ever be an end to the things that bring it all back.