The Things We Keep
On moving and starting over
The basement of my childhood home is filled with boxes we haven’t opened in years. My mom hates throwing anything away. It’s a combination of saving money and the idea that maybe, one day, we’ll need it and it’ll be gone. Which is why whenever I put my clothes in bags headed to Goodwill, half of them inevitably find their way back to the house, to be repurposed into dish rags or draft stoppers.
When I came back to live at home after grad school, I found the plastic bags in my closet. I had placed them in the hallway the last time I was home, over a year ago, but when I opened the door, there they were, three bags piled on top of each other. Sitting, purposeless, in limbo, indefinitely. Just like me.
I shut the door and left them there.
My mom’s house is a shrine to my former accomplishments. The piano that I stopped playing when I was fourteen sits in the corner of the living room, collecting dust. The viola I used to get into All-State orchestra lies untouched on the piano bench. Swim trophies line the built in bookshelves and the fireplace mantel.
Hanging on the walls are my drawings and paintings. Framed watercolors of fruits and veggies in the kitchen, an acrylic snail I painted when I was eight in the guest bathroom, oil paintings of boats from a weekend around Chesapeake Bay in the living room.
Unframed studies of still lives and landscapes lay stacked in the basement.
Sometimes I sit among those unopened boxes and sift through my portfolio, wondering if I could easily pick it back up. If I still had an eye for color, an understanding of shadows, a patience for reflections of light. If I could still create movement from lines.
I imagine I can. I imagine that skill reinforced through years of practice is easy to discover again. Something like riding a bike.
Except I can’t really ride a bike anymore.
I used to put a lot of weight in change. I believed in the magic of starting over, the freedom of creating a story from scratch. Blank slates wiped clean.
But the thing about slates is that there’s always some remnants of chalk dust. Parts of ourselves deeply embedded in our history. The way we laugh, the way we fold ourselves in awkward situations. Our fear of the dark, of heights, of snakes. The way we touch and the way we love.
I’ve started over a few times, for college, then summer internships and grad school. I’ve come to realize that I’m not good at being other people. I still have to fake confidence when I strike up a conversation with strangers. I laugh nervously on dates, I care too much about politics to just let it go, and I can’t hold a grudge to save my life.
We are who we are. Even when we move, when we start over, when we try to leave everything behind, there are pieces of us that we keep. Reminders of who we are and where we come from that give us personality and spark.
Everyone has a story. I think I’m finally okay with holding on to mine.
All my stuff fit in the car.
A small Ikea dining set, a few boxes filled with books and kitchen supplies. My guitar. A large suitcase of all my clothes, with the exception of a few dozen T-shirts from concerts and college organizations that I left at home. At my mom’s home. A collection of memories neatly stacked in a cardboard box in the basement, stored for safe keeping.
Tucked in the corners and hidden between the seats were my fear of getting in trouble, my adherence to social norms, my love of meeting new people despite my anxiety.
In the front seat was a bag with charcoal and a sketchpad. Just in case sayings are sayings for a reason.
