Nothing about 2009 has felt climactic to me. The transition from 2008 to 2009 never seemed monumental in milestone or special in occasion at all. I guess our generation can thank the 1999 to 2000 new year for that. I mean let's face it nothing else is going to seem as exciting as the fear of impending doom we all experienced that December night as we partied like it was 1999 (because it was) and waited for all of our computers and electronic devices to explode simultaneously at midnight.
In 2008 I made, and met most of, a list of resolutions. I made a list for 2009 as well. Nothing too exciting about making a "fresh start" when new year's eve just felt like another Wednesday evening, not a major beginning. As a result I've been chastising myself a little too much lately. Deciding I'm not motivated enough this new year, concluding that I'm not in good enough shape and asking myself what I've accomplished.. rounding that thought off with "you lazy fatass" usually.
Getting things in order usually jump starts me into that fresh feeling and it was time to do the every six months cleaning out of my closets, drawers and cabinets back in the first of January. The last thing I had been procrastinating on doing was to take down the Christmas tree. I had done everything but disassemble it (it's fake). All the ornaments were off, it was unplugged, there was no star on top anymore. The skirt around the base was folded up and ready to be boxed as well. The problem was that I had promised myself I'd clean out my storage unit in my building's basement before I took the tree back down to store it. When I retrieved the tree back in November from my storage cage I was disgusted by how much clutter I had shoved into its confines. So I made myself a silent promise "I'll clean this out before I put the tree back in here." BIG SIGH, that time had come and I finally motivated myself to go down there and make sense of the chaos.
The basement of my building always seems sort of murder-mystery scary to me. It's very "nobody can hear you scream" down there. It's clean and bright (once you turn the lights on) but still it's a HUGE space with concrete ceilings and exposed pipework. It's actually a series of rooms behind locked doors and within each giant room there are rows and rows of floor-to-ceiling storage cages like a maze just waiting for a scary plot twist to occur within.
As I passed all the storage cages on my way to mine I thought to myself "why do we keep some of the stuff we do in storage??" There's the typical things inside the neighboring storage cages like an old fan, luggage, and holiday decorations. Then there's the not so typical things like a Michael Jackson CD laying on the floor of some one's cage. A framed picture of a dog with its birth and death dates listed. Things I have to wonder if we'll ever one day say "I need to go down there and get that RIGHT now." Probably not, but then why don't we just throw them away?
I sat on the floor and fished through my boxes, loaded things onto a cart to take to my car for give-away, consolidated keepsakes into boxes and generally created a much more organized (and spacious) storage area while throwing away unnecessary items. I asked myself that same question again "why am I hanging onto all of this?" Like my old computer from college.. do I expect to one day run down there and boot that sucker up to go through the files and read a paper from Junior year Marketing? Probably not. I suppose at the time of storing things we always think it would be wasteful to get rid of something that had been dear to us or expensive, even if we have no current use for it.
And then I found that dreaded box. The box full of pictures and memories. The box you'll never throw away or at least I never will. The box that, when you peruse it, you feel as awkward as you did the day you saved the things inside of it. A huge plastic container with hundreds of photos, my daily planner that was issued to us in high school proudly reading "1997-1998" on the front. I flipped through it and found notes from classmates. Stopped on certain dates to find out what I might have been doing that very moment at 17 yrs old. "Bring Algebra book tomorrow!" Important notes. A slip of paper listing my Jr. year grade point average; a less than impressive B average. I held the big trash bag in one hand and the planner in the other and almost threw it away, but couldn't.
I put the planner back down into the disorganized pile of forgotten shit and sifted further. Pictures.. from high school graduation of me hugging my parents, my dad with so much less gray hair. My first college dorm room and roommate. A menu from a favorite restaurant. A sweatshirt from high school. The basement wasn't scary feeling any longer. In fact I wasn't even aware of it surrounding me because I was lost in a time warp, leaning up against a metal wall sifting through my life. There were even photos from new year's eve 1999-2000, the last seemingly BIG turning-point new year.
I went deeper into the box and found those borderline disturbing year book photos from Jr. High, you know the ones, and that huge panoramic photo of the entire 8th grade class. Remember how the panorama camera moved slow as it passed the group on a tripod and you had to stay extremely still until it was finished or you'd be blurred? I starred at the panorama for a good five minutes. There's that one kid who would always wave his hand violently so that once the photo was developed he'd have a blur next to his face. The cool kids were in the back row looking up and to the left in unison to be funny. There were the boys who matured way too early for 8th grade and looked like grown men already. The acne was rampant and so were the glasses and braces. I thought 'my God we all looked so retarded.' Then I felt bad for thinking that when I saw the one kid in our class who actually WAS retarded and always asked what time it was over and over. And then I saw myself, chubby as all get out, right in the middle of the photo. I wonder how I had any friends at all. There was that kid Chris standing behind me, the one who was mean to me that one day during lunch that year, I've never forgotten and he surely has. To this day I remember his words and they still make me want to curl into a ball and disappear inside of myself, just like I wanted to that day.
There were tons of other things to piece through in that box but mostly photos. Such awkward times captured in photos and frozen in time. Plenty of really happy times, too, of course.
My thoughts ran wild as I wandered deeper and deeper into the forest of memories:
Why did I think those shoes were cool? Who let me leave the house wearing a sweater that big!? Did I really part my hair like that? I wonder if it still hurts them, too, when they think about it. Where are THEY now? Did I really think I would never get through that situation? I forgot about that! I thought I'd never forget that.. and I did until just now. I thought I was so mature! Look how excited I was. Look how chubby I looked. Look how thin I looked. Look how young I looked. God it hurt so bad. God it made me feel so happy. Oh if I only had known. Oh if only I didn't know now.
I realized pretty quickly why we keep the things we do, or at least some of them.. the important things. I may not use the contents of that box on a regular basis and sifting through it might be a once in a few years experience but that's part of what makes it special when you re-visit. It suddenly seemed foolish to beat myself up for not being motivated enough earlier that day. It also seemed as irrational as it probably in fact is for me to think I'm in horrible shape and talk about myself as if I'm 700 lbs need a crane to get out of bed.
I almost felt YOUNGER after looking through the box. Look at all I've done and how much I've changed and grown in such a relatively short period of time? I was practically just a baby, a kid. At 28 I've just recently graduated from a growing process that everyone has to go through, and still more to come. Seeing all of the artifacts reminded me of the awkward phases and the life lessons.. I'm old now? No, I was just very very young THEN. 2009 doesn't seem like just any other year when put in this perspective. This life is a gift and you can smack me around for being so cheesy, but it's true. How dare I take it for granted. Thank God for "just another year" of status quo.
What if I had come home and offed myself or something terrible the day that Chris kid said those mean things to me at lunch (just for example sake- I never really considered that option)? What if that's all there was, though, and that is when it ended? We have no idea what great things lie ahead but I do know that what seemed so big in 1992, 1996, 2001.. has vanished. We learn, we grow and we get better with time. Those objects we can't make ourselves throw away are pieces of evidence that good times happened, proof we are better than ever and personal reminders of exactly who we are today and why. I carry an I.D. in my wallet that tells who I am. But my identification is summed up in so much more than could ever fit in my wallet.. a snippet of which is contained, in a box, one floor below ground level in my building.
I still can't explain why the Michael Jackson CD is being held onto by someone.. but that's their story to tell, not mine.
M.db
