bottled up, boxed up

I remember the day I cleaned out my apartment and moved from 15th and Spruce to Queen Village. I came home from labor day weekend to find my entire apartment filled, floor to ceiling, with roaches. Some dead in my toilet and bathtub, some roaming free on the walls and on the floors. Apparently my dear o'neighbor set a roach bomb while I was gone, and they all ran under the floorboards and walls.

Poor stella (RIP kitty) was left to fend for herself, battling against the roughest bugs on the east coast. I on the other hand wasn't prepped for the battle, and spent the night on a friends couch.

The next day I came home to clean up the mess. Top to bottom I sprayed, laid traps, disinfected as much as I could. At the end of the night there wasn't a bug to be found. I decided a bath was the way to go. I turned the nozzle on the bathtub on and i saw something JUMP up at me. It was a mouse. Swimming. Swimming in my bathtub.

I bought boxes the next day.

I've boxed up my life many times now. There's something cathartic about putting all of your belongings into a box. Deciding what is worth packing, what is worth leaving behind, what should go to good will, and what belongs in the trash. Forever.

In all the times I've boxed up my life, I've found that it's during a pivotal time in my life. When I'm leaving my first one bedroom apartment, when I'm moving across the country, when I'm moving back across the country, when I'm establishing my space in an oh-so-cramped world.

The process of boxing up memories can be the worst. Re-reading letters of love, tokens of good times, and clothing with memories too painful to revisit. Well not all painful. You get a very unique opportunity to watch yourself grow. To see a transformation from year to year. In shoe choice, in home decor, in underwear, in love. You can see a change from that of a girl to a woman, from that of a lover to a loved one, from that of a significant to an insignificant, from cowering to courageous.

We box up and bottle up everything that's too overwhelming, daunting, or challenging. Throw on a shipping label or a 3x5 cards labeled "livingroom", "fragile", "open when you're ready."Why? Why not throw it all out for a landfill to deal with? Closure? Once something is packed and shipped it's gone for good? We think.

I've unpacked enough boxes in my day to say the least. The latest was probably the worst. Although good friends helped sort the dry cleaning from the washer safe, the living room from the "open on a rainy day."It brought back old memories involving hoop earrings and christmas cards. But finally closure, on the opposite end of a box that I didn't pack myself.

Gone are trips to the beach, vegas and new york. Scrambled eggs and bacon, movies at the ritz, walks to the park, sunday mornings, chinese food in the middle of the night, special light through my window, blueberry muffins and chocolate chip cookies. Bottles of wine, dinner over candle light, and pumps from west broadway. Mexican food, plans for the wine country, shoulder nook, love in the morning, grey's anatomy during finals, nina simone at the end of the day. Never learning to dance, singing while fast sleep, singing while crying. Walking through the snow, meeting in the cold, my red nose in the winter, my cold toes in the morning, my hair through the sunroof.

Bottle it up, box it up. I'm ready for the next move.