Time since I started this post: 7 minutes. And still nothing on the page. Sorry, I'm a bit cranky today. I'm getting extremely fussy here in Chicago, and still have a whole 2 weeks to go before I start my adventures in Oxford. It's hard trying to put my finger on exactly what is causing my anxiety; I don't know if it's the sheer "I'm gonna pee my pants" kind of excitement that I feel whenever a thought of me riding a bike around the cobblestone streets in my Hunter rainboots in a matter of weeks pops into my head, or is it the metaphorical weight I have to carry around with me for the next 2 weeks as I say goodbye to friends, not knowing when I'll be back in Chicago to see them, and of course, then there's packing. Packing that I know is going to take me an obscene amount of time. A kind of packing that makes the act of putting my life for the next 4 months into 2 suitcases look like child's play. I'm talking about digging wayyyyy into the depths of my desk drawers, some of which I cannot open anymore because they are filled to the brim with jewelry boxes, play programs, and yes...the most dreadful, unflattering, mortifying pictures that I cannot figure out why I haven't burned them yet. An album from my 8th grade trip to Washington, D.C. was so horrific that I gasped, threw it back in the door, and promptly went downstairs to grab a beer before continuing to flip through its pages. The cropped argyle sweater...the caterpillar shaped eyebrows sitting above the rims of tortoise-shell glasses...the braces with Oreo lodged in between the wires...the cargo pants yanked above the bellybutton. It's all too much for me to digest at once.
Some of this stuff makes me consider getting a CAT scan. What is the importance of hanging on to a comprehensive, typed out list of every single Beanie Baby I own? SEVEN oriental fans? A felt Peter Pan hat? Thank you note from my kindergarten teacher for the pinata I brought in for my birthday? Really? And why so many earplugs?
So many questions, and 2 weeks to figure it out. I need to be cut throat, show no mercy on every single one of my First Communion cards. But there's this voice in the back of my head, the voice of my 7-year-old self saying "but this is from Aunt Marge, how can you throw it away? She died 5 years ago...this is one of the only memories you have left". But with each swig of beer that I take, I gain more in more confidence of throwing this crap away. I'm excited at the thought of owning a new desk out in California, and dammit, I'm gonna need room in those drawers to fill in with more crap that I'll accumulate in the coming years! So that's what I say to you, annotated version of Tom Sawyer from the 7th grade, and I bid you farewell.
