Fates Worse than Nama Gomi

I think it's clear I like to think of myself as a pretty tough kid. I think if you first met me, you wouldn't buy this and would think I was a fairly soft-spoken girl who wears a lot of skirts and high heels. I like to tell myself, though, that in circumstances that require it, I summon up the emergency spirit pretty well.

However, I have my share of personal phobias. I have discussed one of these at length previously. The other one is packing.

My sophomore roommate, Rachel, was a little astounded when-- after doing my best to keep my chin up through an up and down year-- I broke down at the end of the year sobbing when I tried to pack my stuff. She did an amazing job of being encouraging:

R: "Wow, Bree, it's terrific you folded that t-shirt. That must have been really challenging!"
B (sitting amidst the wreckage of her room, reluctantly folding): "This is impossible!"
R: "That's one less t-shirt to fold!"
B: "But how do I know how many t-shirts to fold? Maybe I should just get rid of them all!!!"
R: "I know, it's so hard."

Of course, she also offered to help many times. But the truth of my difficulty in packing renders this unviable. I'm pretty messy. I'm not diiirty; I don't like food mess or dirty clothes mess or mess to mix, but I tend to shove things in drawers.

And somehow, every time I try to pack, I force myself to go through the long process of sorting these things. I find a note from my best friend from 9th grade, discretely written in gel pen in math class. I think she was a universe to me once but we haven't talked in years and it's probably my fault. Then, I find love letters from an old boyfriend I lost touch with. Much too painful not to read. Then come the honors papers-- were they as good as I thought they were at the time? Better re-read...why did I forget Salinas' name!

In truth, I should just get rid of all this stuff so it stops slowing me down (except maybe my honors papers. I wrote them too recently to be too critical) but I like having a record of life too much.

Then there's the panic of cramming everything into a suitcase, etc. One would think I'd have come to gripes with all this after the past few months. In some ways, I'm a better packer. I get by on fewer clothes. I wear comfy things on planes and put my passport where it's easy to get. But, I'm no better at the normal life to suitcase stage.

I'm moving down to DC tomorrow, and spending tonight writing about packing instead of doing it. Predictable. I'll try to focus, but will probably finally finish posting about Japan.