Ticket stubs, notes, wristbands, receipts, cards. . . it may stem from trying to find permanence in the fleeting or from not being able to let go of the past...but whatever it is, it tends to make packing rather difficult- leaving me with nothing but extra baggage.
Holding onto the remnants of times that impacted who I am today is a habit that began years ago, with a champagne bottle that marked the start of a new year (that bottle still sits on my dresser in Pennsylvania to this day).
There is an orange ceramic box resting on my nightstand, a record of the extent to which this habit has developed. I bought it my freshman year of high school on a Spring Break in Jamaica, and it now overflows with plane ticket stubs, dinner receipts, business cards, and the like that bring back memories. In this box, I have hoarded the world and my memories of it- and perhaps it is with the sum total of all of these items that I hope to convey some part of my life.
I buy keychains and shot glasses everywhere that I go, but I neither carry keys nor take shots. I sleep on the left side of the bed. I love country music, slow dancing, and southern accents. I think that the pouring rain holds so much promise and jeep wranglers are the most fun. People would say I'm a romantic- or painfully naive.
There is nothing I enjoy more than a bottle of champagne on a back porch in the summertime when the air is clear and dawn is breaking.
When you are young, everything seems like it is either the end of everything or the start of everything. I find, though, that I have not yet stopped adding to that orange box.
It would be childish to deny that this wasnt, in some respects, the end of something. The end of my first stint in Washington DC. It will not be the same when I return, but it will always be DC. I suspect that is enough.
I am going to Paris in 3 weeks.
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