All of April is gone.
It's hard to believe that as I sit here typing, half of May is gone too.
My life is on the move again. This morning I realized that subconsciously I have been boycotting all the movement to some extent. My family is moving home from Hong Kong into a new house. Which means I am packing up the condo they have been using as a summer home (and I have been using as a home home)for the last two years and filling the garage with boxes.
To this end, I've been holed up in my house claiming to be packing since the semester got out. I've been sorting through things and going through piles of papers that I meant to go through a long time ago. It's been a process.
And yet, in a flash of deep understanding this morning I realized that I didn't have any boxes.
You can't be moving - or even packing for that matter - if you don't have any boxes.
Turns out... I don't want to move.
I understand why I am moving, but that still doesn't make me want it anymore than I would if I didn't have good reason for doing it. I know I should be excited about the development and growth that will surely come in this new chapter of my life, but I guess I just can't shake the feeling that I just barely put down roots here. I just got attached to people in my life, and moving means I have to give them up.
The letting-go part of change is the part I struggle with. I want the new people and places that change will bring, but I don't want to have to let go of the people and places I already have and already love. It's a constant battle I fight every time I pick up and move.
Strangely enough, while I struggle with this aspect of life's journey, I also find it to be one of the most beautiful and rewarding parts of that journey. Change is the nature of the life we live. It will always happen. Every day we are moving closer and closer to a change that will alter the very fabric of our existence- every day closer to a crossroads where we will chose to explore a new, and up to this point unknown, path that will lead us to more unexplored regions of our potential universe. We cannot possibly know where our lives will end up, because most of the paths we will chose in the future are hidden from the view of our current selves.
It is this unknown side of life that gives living every day to its fullest its importance. If we could have any given day back to do over again or to relive, it would cheapen the experience and make the memory worthless, because we could have it again anytime. We can't have yesterday back; all we can have are the memories of the days already gone be. We have to live today filled to the brim with adventure and love, because we can never get today back.
So, tonight I will finally get some boxes and finally really start moving. Am I sad to be leaving this place and this set of people who have shaped and molded me? Of course. I have loved my time here. I have become a whole new and improved version of myself - Abby 22.0 if you will - and that cannot be forgotten. But, I don't plan on forgetting it, or forgetting anyone from this place.
They have become a part of me as I hope I have become a part of them too. Every person you meet leaves something with you; you carry them in your daily living - recognized or not. We all leave impressions on one another, and those impressions give way to decisions we make about the person we are and the person we will become. We never truly leave anyone, or any place, behind us. We pack the memories of them up in boxes and store them in our hearts and minds until the information they carry in them becomes useful or something reminds us of them. Then we open the boxes and take out the memories.
And we are changed, again.
Goodnight, dear void.
