Packing, Purging.... Re-packing.

It seems as if the last week of my life was like a child in a sandbox making a pile of sand, then moving and making another pile, and more and more piles until she is surrounded by mounds until she has to stand up, brush herself off, and carefully navigate her way to the edge, tip-toeing between the heaps. Except with me it is not sand, it is the treasures, clothes, pictures, cards, books, and random nick-knacks that I have collected over the last 35 years. I question what I should keep, what goes to Goodwill, what I should store in the closet of my parents extra bedroom that they won't look in until I get back in 27 months, and what I should take with me. A favorite pair of pumps, a bracelet which carries sentimental value and those curve-hugging jeans are all great to have here in Southern Cal, but will they be useful in Macedonia where the temperatures get below freezing in the winters and as hot as hell in the summer? A big part of it is when the realization that I am actually leaving hits like a pit in the middle of my stomach, then my head gets light like a drop on a roller coaster and I just lay there in the middle of my piles contemplating my life in the past, present and future. For me, I see life as a series of choices. To get to this point I have made some pretty great choices, and I am confident that in the future I will undoubtedly follow that same pattern. So, the top that I couldn't live without a month ago sits at the bottom of the plastic garbage bag being crushed by the pants, the shoes and the bracelet that I gasped for when I saw them in the store window. And, there is a bag in the closet with other things that I hope to sit down with in the future, unpack, make piles and reminisce about my life in the past.