A Girl and Her Things

I'm a nice girl from Idaho who got tied up with a brilliant scientist from Las Vegas, and in three days I'm following him to Dresden, Germany. He'll be getting his Ph.D. in computational biology from the oldest technical school in Germany, while I try to make a life for myself in a city older and farther from my home than any place I've ever been, surrounded by people I can only barely understand when I'm running on all cylinders.

Moving overseas is an ordeal. Over the past two weeks, I have sent carload after carload of possessions to the thrift store and even after I thought I had gotten rid of everything I could possibly get rid of, I filled another car and I have halfway filled another large black plastic bag that is currently sitting on the floor of my parents' garage next to my suitcase, which is packed so tightly I've vowed not to open it until we're settled in an apartment an ocean away.

In the garbage bag is a bright blue cardigan that I love. Himself remembers seeing me in it before we ever met, just passing as strangers on the university campus as freshmen -- both externally cool but internally combusting with a crush so intense it forced us later to be uncharacteristically bold. The sweater is too bulky to be jammed into a corner of the suitcase, and it's too late in the game to even consider rethinking the stuff that's already been crushed and vacuum-packed. So it goes.

I've always looked with pity and (I'll admit) a bit of disgust at people who hoard things -- things that seem so worthless and replaceable to me. But as a I realize how tender my heart gets when I think of an old, moderately itchy sweater with a little singe on the bottom from standing too close to the stove once, I can see how easy it would be.


JEM