So Much

So much is going on...

I'm overwhelmed. I want to go to Linvilla and buy some apples and pumpkins and take some photos.

It's time to switch clothing and pack up summer gear. Each year I sort through my winter wear and donate a few items, think back to when I purchased this or that.

I'm putting finishing touches on the second bedroom and I leafed through my old Lisa Frank trapper keeper - the one that I hauled to and from SJU my junior and senior years (and still has a paper or two tucked away inside it) and then turned it into my job search trapper keeper. I pulled out JDs dating back to 2001 with notes scribbled across them - send rez 5/3/01, follow up 5/12/01. I set a few aside because I always had this vision of immortalizing my job seeking 20s in a mixed media collage. I'm a tad nostalgic looking through it all. You know when you get so used to a particular feeling? So much so that it becomes you and defines you? And even when you move to a better place, you feel a bit empty because you knew that other feeling for so long?

I'm moving into another place...another decade. All this "stuff" from my 20s is making its way to the attic. It used to be only a few years ago that XYZ was going on...and we fondly recalled the memories...now it's 5-7 years ago. People have moved away, gotten married, are having children. New stories and memories are unfolding. Seven years is a long time.

But it's time. Time to move and shift some things around. Make room for new. It's been happening slowly over the course of this year. I'll be 30 in two months and almost as if my 20s were a book, tons of unfinished stories have been scribbled and told, like even though they needed years to develop and be written, now was when I could see full story and learn valuable lessons from it. Now, before the next chapter starts.

It's an exciting and anxious feeling. Most often I reflect and I think, WOW. I can't believe what's come around and how I've been given this amazing chance to know how important I was to people but also understand who I was then, how I've grown, why things happened the way they did. But it's also a sad feeling because that part of myself that I knew SO well is now the story of my 20s...I'm leaving her behind. Old ways of being and thinking. And like I said - I was so used to wondering what if? and waiting for clarity that such a mentality consumed me and defined me. But now I have it. It's just strange when you see yourself as a collective of parts, of ages, of stories and see a defining theme from the time you're 20 through about 28/29 and realize they've all happened for this very reason - for clarity and self awareness and self confidence - I've grown up but am now entering some other uncharted region, somewhat prepared.

I'm more complete and yet I knew all those thoughts and worries of yesteryear and now that they are gone, I'll sort of miss them.

What will consume and define me in my 30s?