I'm in the process of editing my life down since I'll be moving to DC pretty soon. I've been going through and getting rid of things as I pack. I'm trying to be heartless, but it's really hard. I'm a pack rat -- mostly because I'm sentimental. I'm finding the hard-won t-shirts to most difficult to part with. I'm trying to sort them into 3 categories: t-shirt quilt (which will probably not get made, but one can hope), good enough to wear to the gym but not quite a good enough shirt or memory to make the quilt, and needs to go. It's that last category that's the hardest. How do I tell these shirts that they're not good enough to make the cut? Most of them are from my high school days (a rough point in my life, as I'm sure it was for everyone). It's hard to say, but do I really need that CHS Debate Team t-shirt when I have 1000 other shirts that are relegated to the gym shirt category? Most of those gym shirts are the more recent ones from undergrad-- a lot of sorority shirts and random fraternity party shirts that one accumulates over four and a half years of attempting to fit in.
Then there are the bags and other paraphernalia with sorority letters on them. I want to bring them back to Tech and drop them off for new Phi Mus, but I know that the chances that I make it down there are sliiiiim. Can I really just throw out my Phi bag? Phi Mu was also a difficult time for me as I struggled to find my place. I was a person who likes to be in the middle relegated to the background and often forgotten about. In many ways, my high school and college experiences were very similar as I floundered in trying to find a somewhere I belonged. I didn't need to be the most popular, but I wanted to be liked and I wanted to have a place. I had one in Middle School (I know, a long time ago). Even though I have only the tenuous of Facebook relationships with those people anymore, I felt like I belonged. Belonging and fitting in was something that I craved and deep down still know that I need. So, it was hard to go through so many years where I didn't have a comfortable stride.
It wasn't until the very, very end that I found a few core friends both within and outside of Phi Mu that made things better for me and made law school easier -- knowing that they were and are a lifeline and whatever place I made in law school I had them. Perhaps this new found confidence allowed me to find a place faster in law school. It's hard to tell.
So, full circle. College years were just as rough, and that Phi bag doesn't necessarily represent the best of times, but at the same time, they were an important part of my life. In a terrible Mandy Moore movie, this old grandmother says, "you never really lose your first love." This is so true. While I would never trade Chris for anything (not even Johnny Depp), and I would never under any circumstances get back together with my first love, I still wonder about him. I keep up with him and make sure that he's doing okay because he was an important part of my life. Somehow by making sure that he is a good person, it validates that milestone. It was important and a good decision. That's the way I feel about that Phi bag. Somehow, by preserving this milestone, it validates that point in my life. I can't give up on it any more than I can give up on my first love, because it would be like rejecting a big part of my life.
So much of this stuff (and I know that's all it is) has followed me around since High School. Most of it I don't look at once it reaches it's new home. It's comforting to know that it's there, though, and it's great to go through things as I repack and enter a new phase of my life and relive what that shirt represents. But, at what point is it okay to say, "that was good; I have the memories I need, and I can move on?" How can I be ruthless with my life and my memories? How do I play Survivor and vote things off Lindsay Island, judging them as being more important than others? I know that I need to get rid of the old to make room for the new, but out with the old....is sad.
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