Life Into Boxes

It is an odd feeling - sorting through old papers, pulling out the remnants from the far corners of the dresser drawers, digging into the back of the closet, dusting off that misplaced tupperware bin full of car payments and scraps from magazines and newspapers you thought you wanted to keep, packing your life into boxes.

As Karla and I prepare for this trip, we're packing away six plus years (for me, more for her) of Baltimore.  I keep discovering fliers from shows that I meant to attend but never did, letters from friends I haven't kept in touch with, and general miscellanea that seems as though it must have belonged to some other person.

I discovered a set of letters and booklets that an ex-girlfriend sent to me right before I moved to Baltimore (she was the reason I ended up here, because she introduced me to Baltimore, and I fell in love... with Baltimore, that is).  They were in the bottom drawer of my desk, next to an old accordion folder full of tax documents and car bills from 2004, right next to another folder of abandoned poems and other assorted writings.  She'd sent me hand-crafted postcards, letters, even an odd art book.  It seemed so - strange to find these among my other things, as if I'd never actually lived that life that produced those reactions in another human being.  And yet, it is that exact life that has led me to right now. 

Was that me so many years ago, the person who kept this?  Is that me in this old fading picture?  A journey down memory lane, a teary-eyed whiff of nostalgia...  I wonder, after this journey, when Karla and I return to Baltimore, will we feel that very same way when looking back now on this very moment?