Life in a Box

Dismantling my life has given me much to ponder .  It’s been interesting to see the reaction of friends to my grief over the closing of these chapters of my life spent here on the west coast.  People have been at times happy, uncomprehending, and maybe a bit envious of what I am doing.  Some have been inspired to take stock of their own dreams and aspirations and what it might take to realize them.  But most people do not understand the fact that I am at times overwhelmed with grief.  What possible reason could there be for me to be sad?

It’s a good thing that I expected stress, because there’s been plenty of it.  I expected to be overwhelmed with things to do, with hoops to be jumped through and hurdles to be cleared; I just didn’t anticipate so much of it.  What blindsided me was the grief.  After all, I am making a long-held dream come true, aren’t I?  What reason could there be to be sad?   

The sum of a life?

Everything I owned, at least the more interesting possessions, had a connection to a memory—of a person, of an event, of a place.  Watching these items being carted away in the arms of strangers was more poignant than I’d expected.  It was almost as if parts of my life were walking down the driveway.  Someone likened it to having the estate sale before the death.  If we are the sum of our experiences, these belongings represented my experiences. They are now gone; what does that say about my “self?”  Who, indeed, am I?

My possessions, mostly books, music and art are now are contained in a dozen small boxes.  Some are en route to France; others await instructions.  My clothes fit in one suitcase with room to spare. It is probably empowering to release all of that baggage from the past, but there is something at once exhilarating and terrifying about cutting all ties with the life I have led.  Maybe I am over-dramatizing; after all, I am merely moving to a different country, not to a different planet. Yet as my things disappear, parts of my verifiable past are vanishing as well.  Who is this person whose portrait is fading? That’s the sadness.  Now that she is liberated, who will she become?  That’s the joy and the exciting mystery.