Pieces of Me

Tonight while packing up the room that I have lived in for the past six months here in the city, I found myself getting quite nostalgic while sifting through old birthday cards and stacks of random pictures that date back to high school and a fashion sense that I really would like to forget I ever had. Though I have simplified things since I graduated from college, as moving to Europe really only permits you to shove your entire life into two suitcases and a carry-on, tonight I somehow found myself surrounded by piles of junk. And by piles of junk, I mean piles of my life.

Somehow though, instead of being angry at how much stuff I have acquired in the short time that I've been in Seattle or instead of condemning myself for becoming more and more like my pack-rat mother every day, I started looking for things. I began to look for little things, a specific piece of jewelry that went missing and a book that I swore I got back from a friend who recently borrowed it. Then I began thinking about all the things in my life, little and big, that have somehow become lost along the way over the years and many moves.

I thought about my favorite pair of rainbow sandals that were left somewhere on the beach after a night spent running around the sand in front of lifeguard tower ten. I thought of the hand-me-down twin bed passed down from my cousin, which I immediately re-gifted to a lucky passer-by who found it mid-alley way, on account of the fact that finding a legitimate home for a bed really seemed like too much to handle on the first night in my already fully furnished house on the ocean. I thought about the freaky deaky optical light pumpkin decoration my mom sent me for Halloween during freshman year of college which was somehow "misplaced" during the midst of a deep cleaning session before our graduation party senior year. I thought of my favorite scarf from India that was left while making a quick escape from a busy bus in Egypt, the next country we visited while studying abroad on Semester at Sea. I thought of a swimsuit cover up that was lost just this past weekend during the madness of a long and extremely wild day on the lake.

And as I started thinking of all the material items that I have somehow misplaced, thrown away, or just plain forgotten in places across the globe, I began to think about more important things that I have left behind along the way. Things that make me who I am, things that were left behind on purpose, yet sometimes unknowingly.

As I closed my eyes and laid down on my bed I began to realize how much of myself I have actually given to a place, a person, a moment in time. Whether it is a part of myself lost in a past relationship, my dignity lost somewhere at a bar in Fremont, or my youth that was lost the day I drove away from San Diego and the four years of irresponsibility on the beach, much of me has been left behind.

Opening my eyes, I focused on a picture on my dresser which boasts four colorful boats on the most incredibly green water I have seen. Instantly I was taken back to the beaches of Thailand and the night while studying abroad that changed everything for me. Looking back now, I realize that the next day leaving Koh Samet, I left a piece of myself on the beach. Whether my tears are still in the sand or my laughter somewhere in the warm air, I was broken that night, comforted by best friends, and emerged as a new and changed person. Again, I scanned across my half-packed room only to land on a photo of my house family in Germany and a wave of sadness overcame me as I realized how much I miss that little guest house, how deeply I loved our house father Simon, and what a large part of my heart is left back in the tiny town of Illesheim.

Finally my eyes moved once again to a picture of the four of us. The girls and I on our rooftop deck overlooking one of the best views in the entire city. Memories of the past six months running through the streets of Seattle at night and exploring new, cute cafes by day flooded my mind. I thought of what we have accomplished in the time we've been here together. I thought about the conversations had on the red couch, some painfully serious, some wildly inappropriate.

And while I wondered for a few minutes what material item I will be most likely to forget, to lose or leave behind at the apartment in a couple days, I realized that the most important thing I can leave behind is a piece of myself. As of today, I have one week to sift through the piles of junk that have become my life. One week to check and double check every nook and cranny for lost belongings. And one final week to let a part of me go, to leave a piece of me behind.