An Ode to Our Suitcases

I just wanted to announce that as of a couple of days ago, we officially have no clothing in suitcases, backpacks, or garbage bags. It is all now in a closet and a dresser. We're like real live people.

But before we banish our suitcases to the scary basement storage closet, let's reflect.

We bought our three suitcases about five months ago at the noble Deseret Industries, each for under (if I remember correctly) $7. We bought them because they were ginormous and the zippers and wheels still worked. Mostly. After much cramming, vacuum packing, and discarding, we filled them with all the things we couldn't live without.

And then, on July 9 ...

We dragged them through the Salt Lake International Airport, where I apparently turned into a celestial being. We checked them and were reunited with them eight years later in the Dresden airport.

And then we moved into this little rented room, where we spent the next 10 days in a brief stretch of my life I try to avoid thinking about for any length of time. (Jake started work immediately, so I got to sit here by myself all day being alternately freaked out and really bored.) But then, heaven be praised, we found an apartment ...

... where I turned into a lollipop after dragging our stuff up the stairs — and I didn't even do the biggest suitcases. I thought Jake was going to have a stroke. This picture is the strangest of them all for me. This is literally everything we own standing in one corner of a three bedroom apartment that is EMPTY. There was not a horizontal surface other than the floor in the whole place. No fridge, no oven, no kitchen sink, nothing.

But through it all, our trusty Suitcases were there, keeping our clothes and other possessions together and off the floor. Thank you, Suitcases, for your loyal companionship.



JEM