A Container of Memories
August 30th, 2002 4:34 pm

There seems to be a lot of upheaval in moving from one place to the next. Not just in boxing your things up and getting them ready for the journey across town to the new house where they will just become clutter again, but in the emotional journey one takes when deciding to move.

As a people, we invest so much into the space in which we reside. A whole science exists to do nothing but to study how people lived throughout history. One documentary after another filled with theories about how people lived because of what the scientist find when they get there.

To move, one has to make the decision to end part of your life. All the things that happen there will be regarded as a stage. Still, my wife and I will remember something - a story, a funny moment - and in sharing we’ll start with, “remember when we were living at the apartment and…,” the retelling of the memory begins.

To move, you have to decide that you will regulate this home and its times to being a stage in your life. Right now people are walking around my house judging it. The house where my very first son took his very first steps in life, the house where my very first son eeked out his very first words - and they are judging if this home is worthy to be theirs. I wonder when they walk into my son’s room, if they realize this is the place where he sometimes wakes up scared at night and calls out for me to come hug him.

As I looked at other homes that could potentially be mine, I wondered things like, ‘will my children fall down those steps?’ I fell down a flight of stairs when I was a kid and my dad held me in his lap as I cried away the last of the pain. Will a similar memory be created in this house?

But I have to realize that memories don’t stay within a container, a container like a home. Memories are created within the spirit of people and they travel with you no matter where you decide to rest your head.

But I couldn’t help but walk around these homes with some reverence as I looked at the pictures of families on the walls. What memories are etched in this structure? What laughter carried through the rooms? I’ll never know. However, I can respect it by doing one thing for them. Building my own memories in this place. Running to my son’s new room when he wakes up scared because of some nighttime goblin, filling the family room full of laughter when friends visit and cleaning up after one of our dogs when they couldn’t quite make it outside.

In a few weeks, I’m going to be moving all my belongings to another part of the city. I hope that in the stress, I don’t forget the importance of the process and in the chance to start something new.

Posted in General by Mark
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SL
September 4th, 2002 1:11 am

I recently moved into a two bedroom apartment, both rooms being occupied prior to my stay. Yes, I sleep on the couch in the living room, while my two other roommates are gracious enough to let me slide on the rent while I look for a new job. After I lost my job, I skipped town, moved further south to a bigger city, where the job hunting might be easier and the market better. I left my old apartment and moved 98% of my belongings to my parents house, while some shirts, my pillow and toiletries moved with me. After accumulating four years of crap in college, and two more post college, then living without it for a few months, I realized that I don’t need, or really even care about most of my possessions. I still have the same memories, but without the memorbilia.

I’m still the same person… but without the baggage. I’ve realized what is important in my life, and realized that it isn’t the couch I paid too much for, or the thousand other things we waste our time and money on everyday. Our physical belongings that make us who we are really aren’t who we are. The majority of the things that I thought I couldn’t do without, I do without, and most of the time, do better without.

Will I want all my clutter back when it is time to move off the couch after I’ve secured a job?