I think i was around 11 or 12. My dad still had his renault 12. I was inside the car with my brother waiting for my mum and dad to bring the last few bags from inside my grandmother's house. It must have been around July because the grass was all yellow and the wood was all outside, not inside the room in the roof.
I was holding this plastic key ring thing that doubled up as an address book. I think a neighbour friend of my mum gave it to me. It wasn't that amazing and it surely wasn't that practical, i mean, why would i need an address book at that age? But it was a present.
You see, i didn't get many of those.
I was holding it and when i shut the car door the address book got stuck. I don't remember crying then but i remember that my heart skipped a beat. I opened the door carefully with fear and there it was. My present was in one piece but seriously bent over. I remained silent the whole way back home - all 350km of it.
Throughout the years it has been hard to throw away stuff. Things acquire special meanings that range from thoughts, smells, visuals to invented stories of 'i wish it would have been'. It had always been a hard and bitter battle to manage to have stuff so how could i ever throw it away?
About 10 years ago, someone hurt me like i [then] never thought someone could. I was young and simple minded. Closed minded, if i am entirely honest, but i cut that person out of my life nonetheless. Literally cut it. I threw it away because something had broke inside me. It also broke the news that life does not have to be this bottomless well that hoards itself and all that comes with it.
Then little by little, things were left behind at every step of the way. I like to believe i am more open minded now so the stuff i cut away has less to do with disappointments and more to do with its potential rightful place in my life, be it a positive or a negative one.
However, i still hold on to too many things, of matter and of thought. Much of that 11/12 year old is still here although it's not fear that i feel at the moment when i stare into the piles of gathered pieces of life in front of me. I can't part with so many things but i don't want to take everything with me because i am tired. At this point in time i don't know what is worst - if the fact that i still have massive issues with leaving things behind or the fact i want to leave things behind because i am tired. Tired of carrying added emotional weight through different countries, houses, lives.
No, it's not fear. I now know that the love others can have for you is never measured by what they give you in the absence of showing it in any other way. I always knew that i loved way more than i could ever give but then again, i've always showed it 10 fold, in part, sadly but truthfully, because that's what i so wanted to get in return - simple unassuming love.
Bags and bags in front of me. And i've loved them all, some more, some less. But do they all have a rightful place in my life now?
Labels: Life, Thoughts