My nine year old son and I were reminiscing yesterday about the day we moved into our soon to be former apartment (just over two years ago). He was seven then, and I was...well...two years younger than I am now...
We never really know how long we're going to be in any given place, nor can we predict the many memories, both good and not so good that we will take with us when we leave.
Two years is a long time, especially to a nine year old. So much of his life, and my daughter's, who was just three when we moved in, has been spent in this cramped, yet homey two bedroom apartment.
I've lived in so many places that moving yet again feels almost trivial. I have random memories of many homes...but to my kids, this is a major undertaking, a new step in an exciting and frightening direction - because the unknown can never really be only one or the other can it?
And if I actually stop to think about what I'm doing yet again, I'm suddenly aware that I too am excited and frightened... Not 'little kid staring at the shadows in the corner' frightened, but that nagging, echoing emptiness that settles into the pit of your stomach and reminds you that there is always a margin of error...that I could be doing the wrong thing...though I'm certain I'm not...
My life goes into a stack of boxes once again, and as a writer and a human being who has lost loved ones, it occurs to me that one day in an unpredictable, and hopefully distant future, my life will go into those boxes one final time for those whom I leave behind to determine what is truly worth keeping, and what should be retired back to the earth along with me. Funny, but what we feel defines us, and what others see as important about us aren't always the same things are they?
Well, enough of the rambling, I need to finish packing...and God willing, I'll soon be unpacking them again in a new home, ready to write another chapter, and excited to create fresh memories with my much adored family and friends.
Ready or not, here I go...
