1 post tagged “pack rat”
the past few days i've been spending a large portion of my time packing. while i personally think i've become quite a snazzy weekend-trip packer, these large packing jobs are still beyond my skillz. probably the worst case of this was moving out of my dorm room freshman year. i had no exams yet managed to not finish packing the entire room until my parents had already showed up at my door. furthermore, i rode for 3.5 hrs back to dallas in the same position, without moving - with my still-inflated yoga ball pressing me against my seat since the entire car was packed full. how? i know not.
two years later, and unfortunately, the story has not changed much [with the exception that i did not pack my yoga ball to singapore, although it is still inflated and has remained so all the various times i've moved it since freshman yr]. attempting to fit a semester's worth of stuff [used not b/c of a lack of a better term, but really just for the fact that it generalizes & accurately reflects all that i'm stuffing in. pure stuff] into two suitcases was impossible. i added on an additional backpack [80 oz] and a duffle...everything is BARELY fitting. should check-in stop me tomorrow morning and question how a duffle+huge backpack = personal item+small carry on, i'll have to pray/wink/cry [in that precise order] myself onto the plane, hopefully with all my bags in tact.
so, while sweating bullets [in my non-aced, extremely humid singaporean dorm room], i slowly realized how much the small things add up - the small knicknacks here and there that i'll collect/keep/pick up for the keepsake; a bit of this to remind me of that trip, a little of that to represent so-and-so. overtime [a semester to be exact], the little things collect and become excess baggage [or rather the 5kg that won't stay within the designated luggage].
with one suitcase down, i formulated one of those "only b/c my mind is going crazy" metaphors. my daily pack-rat/keep-it-all habits extend beyond southeast asian trinkets; the habit leads to a pile of back-tracking memories [not the fond ones, but the ones that stay past their welcome & hinder present/future judgments due to pure sentimentality] that cause present&future stuttering. maybe i've always subconsciously made this connection; maybe that's why it feels so good to get rid of things sometimes. or to pass them on. i'm not sure exactly how much i got from these past few months, but i'm sure that i've figured some things about letting go of things; it's not the receiving that's the problem, it's the ridding process. regardless, these months are done, the page is mid-turn, and the hand flipping through is slightly more steady and sure. only slightly though.
on a less personal note...
my british lovey from singapore is in love with this song; when we are listening to this song on the plane during departure/landing, she will ignore the flight attendant who signals/yells/pulls to get us to pause the ipod; when others speak during this song, she thinks they're disrespecting the music; whenever we heard this song on the streets on bangkok [which was quite frequenly], we'd stop until it finished. anyway, basically, i've listened to this song QUITE a bit since my first week here. HOWEVER. i didn't pay much attn to the lyrics until recently...and um, let's look at them shall we:
My heart’s crippled by the vein
That I keep on closing
You cut me open and I
Keep bleeding
... graphic much? seems in the middle of this british idol's pop hit, she decided to insert an extra dose of emo-licious-lyrics. i think the imagery is disguised behind the catchy tune, but now i can't listen to the song without imagining McDreamy & open-heart surgery.
heading back to america in t-8 hours.
adios-la, singapura
