Unpacking

Moving house is regarded as one of life’s unyielding displeasures, right up there with cleaning the drain of your shower, or fighting French people over the last Nutella jar in a supermarket. I’ve done it a fair number of times in the past few years, and even when you think you’re getting good at it, you find yourself dragging several suitcases and backpacks that weigh half your body weight through various airports, with the grim knowledge you’ve left half of it back in the middle of the Alps underneath a stairwell at work.

At least that’s my most recent experience at attempting to move out.

Having moved back in with my parents for the next 2 months, upon reaching my bedroom I was greeted with overflowing cupboards and wardrobes, thick with the history of my previous 26 years. Between the regulatory school and university hoodies (something apparently quite particular to the UK, at least in Europe), the rugby tops bought for when I was playing Under-14 level that are still too long on me now, and the various artifacts from my 12 year old artistic self, I came across other things, more personal in their being.

Over the previous 3 years, I’ve met countless people who’ve made an impression on my life, made a myriad of friends from around the world, and shared my love with a few people too. As I unpacked the boxes and suitcases that had dutifully followed me home, I came across birthday cards, signed by the dozens of people I called my colleagues, friends, and fellow Scouts. I came across letters, typed and hand-written, from closer friends, reminding me of the times where we leant on each other, where one held the others strength when they could not hold it themselves. I came across lovers notes, past and present, oft written with the drum of our shared heartbeats still ringing in our ears. Each paper a moment in time, pure and honest; a snapshot. The love fades, people change, and yet the note lingers, resilient to the passage of time and yet comfortable holding that very specific truth within in.

Unpacking these memories is both a physical and mental task. In deciding which mementos to keep, we spring clean our own mind, our own memories. We take them out, discard that which we now view as valueless, and then try to place what’s remaining in our lives, creating our very own, very personal Dewey system, a way of remembering. It is at once cathartic, releasing, and exhausting. Examining ourselves and our past, reviewing both the triumphs and the failures, the giddy successes tinged with the crushing disappointments. It is only by truly unpacking, by deconstructing all you have shoved together, that you can start to make sense of the nonsense we call life.

I’m at a stage where, once again, there are several “opposing” paths lying in front of me, not to mention the cacophony of side streets urging me down their alluring jittys. After a remarkable 2 ½ years at KISC, I am finding great solace in being surrounded by deep, thoughtful, emotional, rational people – and how some can be all those things at once. Thank you to all of those who have given me something to unpack so far – it won’t be long until I hit the road again and continue to explore, happy my backpack will be full with the lessons you’ve taught me.