Storage

Well, it's happening. The infamous storage unit in Oregon is being emptied and its contents reunited with their owner.  The truck won't get to me for another two weeks, but two weeks is a short wait when I haven't seen my things in three years.

(Things.  In French, directly translated, les choses.  I said this a lot in France, because I say it a lot in English.  Months and months into my stay a friend finally said, "Rachel, we just don't say les choses like you're using it.  Say, maybe, mes affaires instead."  Way to teach me not to be so vague, Cyril.  Your voice will be in my head til I die, correcting me every time I use the word "things." Kudos.)

So tonight I am listening to All Good Things Come From the Desert and rearranging mes affaires yet again, anticipating the tight squeeze it'll be once my second half arrives.  Half my wardrobe.  My favorite books, to be added to the almost ceiling-high stack in my closet now.  Dishes I still won't need for a while.  A bike.  My desk - that last one so important and greatly missed these passing years, but I find it a bit painful to think about fitting it into a crowded bedroom that already has to make room for my niece's toys, a bed, and two dressers.

My things.  Mes choses.  Mes Affaires.

And Christopher Miner.

The rearranging, the anticipation, the music...I feel like I'm 26 again.  I feel like I'm neurotically in like with T.J. and discontent with my life.  It's funny how just the right combination of things can throw you back like that.  I'm not discontent, and I no longer like T.J., and I'm certainly not 26.  But music can rub on your heart scars sometimes, pulling them just the right way to remind you there was once a wound.  It's not bad.  Sometimes it's nice to remember what life was, even to enter the emotion for a second, like watching a sappy movie.

Did you now scar tissue can have its own blood supply?  Scar tissue is not, as so many assume, dead tissue, but living. That's why its still sensitive sometimes. But the little pinching reminders are good.  They say, "This is what your life has been; this is what you've been through.  Remember, and be grateful.  Embrace the growth."