Two years ago I graduated high school and the next day left town. My family moved and all of my things were crammed into boxes, some of it left for my dad to take care of. Since then a lot of it has just sat in the garage, boxes being added last summer when I came home from Taiwan and there’s more in my room from when I moved back from Ontario.
My parents told me that that’s just not going to fly anymore (I completely agree) and I spent all of yesterday going through these boxes (note: there were thirteen. Holy crap.) and sorting through to give away, to recycle, to donate to the library. I didn’t take a picture of it because my camera died, but it was sorted down to five boxes, two of which are dedicated entirely to books, one that’s filled with kitchen ware I got from grad and the other two with things that, under no uncertain terms, I couldn’t part with. (The thirteen boxes were that to begin with, too.)
It was interesting, though, to see the ways I’ve grown and changed. Those thirteen boxes contained things I loved and put value in over a six year period and then to see how that has changed in just two years….it wasn’t entirely surprising, but it was a little emotional.
That baseball glove is the first ball glove I ever had. There’s another, bigger one with my name on it and this one now has the initials É.R.C on it for Bro #2, but it came with a rush of memories of baseball practices and the really irritatingly hot uniforms that we played in, the weight of the bat catchers’ equipment (my position for three years), and all the people I’ve played with over the years. One glove.
There were art assignments and my collections of Writer’s Digest, Nylon, ION magazine, issues of magazines with Natalie Portman and Ewan McGregor on the front (Marie Claire and Men’s Health, respectively), some of my favourite books and books by my favourite authors (found The Ring that my sister gave me for Christmas one year), the Star Wars Legacy comics that I devoured and searched for for ages, letters I exchanged with a deceased aunt, clothes from when I graduated, things that I had forgotten about but yet were still important to me. I kept the big ones (the art, the letters, the books, the comics) and am giving away or donating the rest (the magazines, some other books, the clothes).
I may not be getting my own place anytime soon (yes, that’s a hint that there’s ‘news’ coming), but I now have the space to grow some more. To find new things that interest me and to fill my life with. Yes, it was sad. I did need a moment to pause over something that I’d found and look back to where that fit back in my life, but it’s also exciting, that there’s room for the new to fit in there as well.
Things I’m Loving:
+ One Last Mother’s Day – I found this via A Cup of Jo and couldn’t help but share as well. Motherlode shared an essay about a woman whose friend had found out, two years ago, that she had Stage 4 pancreatic cancer and wasn’t eligible for surgery. It’s an absolutely beautifully written essay and so worth the five minutes it takes to read. The last paragraph is my favourite. Because what word other than ‘Mom’ can be traded so easily with the word ‘Love’?
+ Educated for Unemployment – An article that a classmate of mine posted up on Facebook earlier today. Relevant to all of us since, well, we all just graduated from Photojournalism, a form of journalism and the article talks about how students in a ‘soft’ area of study (sociology, psych, art history or, well, journalism) are a ‘dime a dozen’ and the courses are full, they’re giving you a wonderful education, but they’re not giving you a job. This was something that my fellow classmates and I heard about constantly and yet we still stuck it out. I wonder what that says…
+ Around the World – Garance Dore travels. A lot. So she took shots of her favourite bag in the different cities and countries that she’s travelled to and then put it together in a multimedia-esque slideshow with a voice over and sound effects.
+ 5 Classic Cocktails – I’ve been following Jennilee Marigomen for awhile now and her photos are of the day to day and the simple, things you see but don’t see. For each cocktail that there is listed, there’s also a photograph that she’s taken that embodies what she thinks of that cocktail. It’s simple but oh so effective.
