A Rolling Stone Gathers No ... Memories?

Today's Aside:
The Daily Show is quickly becoming one of the most trusted news sources in America. I'd like to hear your thoughts on that, readers.

Nevertheless, Jon Stewart is a hottie.


(Definitely supports Lex's theory, but oh well.) On to today's post.

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I'm spending a little time on the East Coast this week, helping Marco pack his things before the expiration of his visa forces him out of the country. We have two remarkably different styles while doing this. He's a total packrat that hangs on to every little piece of paper, movie ticket stub, receipt, bad photograph, and museum map we've come across in his time here. He shovels them all into suitcases like he can't live without them, even though they've spent the better part of the year gathering dust in his bookcase or on his bulletin board. Then there's me, the cruel and relentless disposer, trimmer of extraneous data fat.

While Marco is at work I sneak through piles of this crap and eliminate things that really don't need to go back overseas (I mean, seriously: do you need a receipt from the gas station we stoppped at for a Coke on our way up to Maine?). He is despondent when he sees me putting his furniture on Craigslist or eBay for under $50 a piece, upset when I insinuate his inefficiency in pruning his collection of "mementos", unsatisfied until he realizes he won't need to pay $150 to check that third suitcase after all.

I get this merciless ability to streamline my life from my mother, I realize. (Marco is much more like my father in that respect). Throughout the tens of times that we've moved around the world, my brother and I feared her for her muck-out mantra: "If you have to think about it, throw it away." Now don't get me wrong - my mother is just about the sweetest person on this Earth - but during moving season she would have us root out all of the excess until, upon her third or fourth inspection, only the essentials were left. Nothing was sacred - not even our impressive collection of stuffed animals when we were younger - and everything had a purpose: clothes we no longer wanted were given to the needy, electronics our young attention spans had discarded were shipped or driven to recycling centers, books we hadn't read in ages were donated to the local library. My mother was building a lean enterprise, and we struggled to adjust, coming up with reasons months in advance to keep certain items marked for disposal. As technology advanced, she started putting items on eBay and Amazon - even once accidentally selling a gorgeous book I had received as a gift from Cian.

Someone once remarked to me when they heard this story that I must have no memories left, and I paused to consider this. As much as my brother and I dreaded the almost yearly mucking of our proverbial stalls, we had always seen it as sort of a farce, screaming in mock horror whenever our mother announced its commencement. There was never any animosity toward her, just the realization that we had to keep track of our things and be that most elusive of qualities: responsible. It made sense: our posessions multiplied like rabbits from one house to the next, and there had to be some sort of process for keeping order. Perhaps foreseeing some sort of perpetual memory loss, my mom and I had made a deal long ago: I got to keep one giant shoebox full of whatever I wanted, as long as it was all in that box, labeled and organized so that it would be easily identifiable and not thrown away by accident.

Last weekend, at my parents' house, I opened that box. It had been years since I'd gone through it - I'd "evolved" while away at university and developed a filing system of my own. Inside were mostly mementos and letters from exes - things my mother had advised me I would want to look back on later in life and read, even though at the time I wanted to do nothing more than burn them. "This is how you learn", she would say. "This is how you see how far you've come. You'll want these when you're 30, trust me."

The bundle I was looking for lay underneath the Valentine's Day cards, the high school prom photos, and the baseballs and mix CDs from my ex. Dozens of identical white envelopes marked self-consciously with the pointy handwriting I so adored. They were addressed all over the world - to almost every place I had lived. He had kept track of me, written me, sent me photographs, always in the same white envelopes. No return address, just his four initials. A whole relationship held together by a single rubber band.

I found that box in under a minute, even amongst the chaos of my parents' new house, and for the first time in my life I was grateful to my mother's insistent spring cleaning ritual. Filtering every 6 months or so had allowed me to distill what was truly important and keep it safe. I had gathered memories - they were just carefully stowed away until further notice.

As I started packing my bag to head back out West, I nestled the bundle of white envelopes safely between my clothes. I would read them when I got back to my apartment, have my emotionally overwhelming moment(s), and move on. I planned to observe this part of my life like I would a time capsule: as an interesting but otherwise irrelevant portion of history. The next morning, as I was trying to help my brother schedule an appointment online, I mentioned that I was going to fly to see Marco. Not having clearly heard me, he exclaimed: "who, Raf? When are you going?" I froze.

San: We're not friends anymore, man. He's married now. His wife hates me.
Lil Bro: So? You guys were friends, like, way before he met her.
San: It didn't work out. I don't know what to tell you.
Lil Bro: That's so dumb. He's a moron. I mean, you're my sister, you know? How can he not love you?
San: He's not a moron he's just.....no, you're right. He's a moron.
Lil Bro: Hey have you seen this website? It's so cool.......blahblahblahblahblah

(my brother has a short attention span)

I walked over to my suitcase and put my hands on my hips. Raf didn't belong anymore. He had chosen to leave my life. He had no business being all over my apartment, making the last year of my education a replay of regrets - pain with which I would punish myself on days when I got too close to happiness. These letters should not be in my suitcase - they needed to be shelved away until I was either old enough to have forgotten him or wise enough to take his memory in stride. But I knew better than to throw them in the trash. "This is how you learn", after all.