Unpacking Never Meant As Much
July 23, 2003 :: 11:41 PMIt took me three days to begin unpacking my stuff.
Mom’s been bugging me to do it since I arrived so that my luggage would stop getting in the way. I’ve been dilly-dallying. And now I’ve come to stop and think why it took me so long to start.
Unpacking my stuff was a step farther from the life I used to live.
Earning my own keep and putting an end to financial dependence on my parents. Not sleeping and waking up as I please (because that will no longer do). Not simply loafing around the house (because there is so much to do and accomplish, both for myself and for my loved ones). Letting go of the ways of my childhood and assuming bigger responsibilies.
All that will happen after I unpack.
Unpacking was submitting to my situation. It was accepting that things can no longer be the way they were. It was disarming myself for a complete surrender to a higher level of maturity. It was yielding to the whims of fate, and giving credence to the thought that there is a purpose in its whisking me away from most of the people I love. It was bearing sufferance of my powerlessness, and conceding to whatever has been planned of me.
I clung to my old life. But I have relented.
And now my stuff, they are unpacked.
But what surprised me was that I took delight in it. I enjoyed hanging my clothes, filing my documents, and arranging the trinkets of memories my friends gave me. Seeing my belongings in their rightful places brought to me a semblance of order in my life — something I seem to have been groping for.
If taking the first step to a new life brought me fulfillment unexpected, maybe I’m in for an eventful and fulfilling journey.