Today we rearranged half of our furniture and emptied out the closet that housed our cardboard box collection.
While they were in the apartment those boxes said to me "you can move out tomorrow if you need to" but that was a lie. We own a couch and a washer and a dryer and a double bed and two floor lamps and a kitchen table and four bookshelves. I can't fit my life in the back of my station wagon like I could a few years ago. The funny thing is that in many ways I felt more rooted in college. I had a much stronger sense of belonging to the place where I lived, even though I still went back to my parent's house on breaks and changed dorms every year. All that packing and unpacking and moving was somehow emblematic of belonging. Now that we are "settled" the signs of belonging aren't as clear. I held on to those boxes for a year longer than I needed to, just to pretend, in a small way, that I was mobile. But I am not. We are not.
This isn't an epic turning point by any means, and we've been trying to feel more connected to this place for a while, but I am glad the boxes are gone. Now we have to stay.
3 comments:
I've moved around quite a bit since then, but I felt more rooted at school as well. It was home; I was very comfortable there, largely because of the people and community. That communal rootedness, I've found, has been more significant to feeling rooted than actual physical rootedness.
yes, I would agree. I just found it funny how the physical and emotional realities were/are so at odds!
'tis true! Sometimes you just have to take care of the physical realities... I think it eventually helps.
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