Thursday, July 12, 2007

The Final Countdown: My Life in a Bag

Or bags. Six to be exact. I'm (almost) all packed up. I have one more day stateside and off to Italy via Dublin I go. Tonight I tied my mattress to the roof of a Volvo and let a nice girl with a scarf on her head drive it away to 40th and Lancaster. And she paid me 30 bucks, what a deal! So it is officially camping time for me. Good thing I hung on to the air mattress. I’m still stiff and sore from Trapeze lessons (see below). I’m sweaty from jamming, cramming and literally kicking the mattress down my tiny flight of spiral stairs. But seeing the vast real estate of carpet in my bedroom gives me satisfaction. I am really getting down to just the basics. Tomorrow I am planning one final attempt for a sidewalk sale to liquidate the rest of my merchandise.

Although saying goodbye has been really hard, I’ve had a good time with it. My two very best friends from college came in to spend the entire weekend with me. We picnicked, shopped, danced, drank, sunned and swam. What more could a girl possibly want for her last hurrah in town? After that I spent the day in New York City at Trapeze School. So fun, for my birthday Josh arranged for me to go! It was great. On top of Pier 40 on the Hudson River, overlooking the Manhattan Skyline, just like Sex and the City! Kelly and I weren’t exactly recruited for the circus, but it was exhilarating and I do think I had at least a few bird-like moments swinging from my knees and reaching for the sky.

In between the masses of fun are lots of tender moments of realization of how much I’ll miss my apartment, my friends and the city in general are also many moments of realizing just how much stuff I am packing… I really don’t need most of these things. I’ve been far too generous in applauding myself for the things that I’m NOT taking. Six giant bags full of clothes is still a bit shameful. I did better at work. I had a pretty big desk stuffed and decorated to the gills with miscellaneous gifts and tokens of appreciation from all over the world. It was nice to reflect and think about how each one of these things symbolized a job well done. It was not nice to rack my brain trying to remember exactly who I acquired each of them from. I had a nice little “yard sale” outside of my office (much to the dismay of some of my office neighbors I’m sure). I do love a good yard sale. It was quite nice in many ways, lots of people stopped by to browse and say hello, I got rid of most of my junk, er, mementos and I am comforted to know that maybe some of the people that took my stuff will think of me now and again.

And now onto the final task, I must clean my apartment one final time in a vain attempt to receive any of my security deposit back. At least there isn’t much to dust!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Okay you are about to leave the USA and not one word about leaving your mommy behind!!!!

Kimmie said...

Sorry Mom...
Perhaps there just aren't enough words:)