Tomorrow is my last day of work and I approach it with many mixed feelings. There are a lot of things I probably won't miss, and others that I'm sure I will. I found out today that I am an expert paper-cutter. Yes.. it's quite a talent really.. you've got to make sure the edges are nice and even, and you can't get too carried away with the slicer-thingy, because you could totally mess up your piece of paper (or fingers) if you slice too quickly..
Okay, whatever. So this job at Cristo Rey was supposed to last longer than this... that was my intention anyway. I guess the Lord thought He would pull a fast one on me and change my burden for a while from Latin America to Africa. Not that I don't love L.A. anymore, my focus has just shifted for a little while. So as I sat at my desk, jammin' out to some great tunes and freezing to death (I was not made for AC that works well..) I was thinking about the little joys in life and how greatly the Lord has blessed me with such a gracious boss and co-workers when I see these two little mallards waddling down the sidewalk. I'm always surprised to see them because they just don't belong there. But every time it rains, they appear from nowhere. So I tried to sneak up behind them to take a good picture, but they were too smart for me... Sneaky little guys, watching me with their little heads turned. There's something about ducks that makes me just really happy, like a little kid. Everybody likes ducks.. I haven't met anybody that doesn't.
So I spent a few hours tonight going through all my stuff and throwing a lot of it away.. lots of Spanish papers that I'd once sworn to never get rid of, just because of the sheer frustration and loss of brain cells from that class. Those papers were a reminder of the ridiculousness we all went through. There are a lot of memories in those boxes in my closet. Newspaper articles from when I was a baby-4 yrs. old: one of mom holding me on her lap while she played the piano and another of me playing on a tire swing with my long hair hanging down. I also found this video that I watched literally ALL THE TIME when I was a kid... most girls were obsessed with dolls or playing house, etc.. I watched baby Shamu being born. Over and over and over and over. There was some special on 60 minutes and my Grandma and Grandpa recorded it. Whenever we went to their house for vacation, I'd pull out Shamu and my brother would die, protesting that we'd seen it a million times already, and how could I possibly want to watch it AGAIN? (I think I might have to make a copy of it and hide it in his cabinet, just for old time's sake..) I wonder which he thought was worse, Shamu or The Sound of Music?
So my room is pretty much a disaster area right now. Papers all over the place, stacks of books, bags of stuff to give away, random things that I'm not exactly sure what to do with because I don't know where they came from in the first place... little disposable cameras that still haven't been developed from how many years ago?
How is it possible that we acquire so much... STUFF? What is it really worth anyway? I'm a pretty sentimental person; I can attach sentiment to almost anything if I try. But I promised that I was going to be detached and focused while going through my stuff, because really, if I don't remember in 5 months that I ever had it, did it really mean anything anyway? Probably not. So I take it all of the boxes and envelopes, go through it all page by page, picture by picture, random thing by random thing, and weigh its value, asking if I'll want to remember it in 6 months time, and if the answer is.. eehh not so much, then into the garbage sack it goes..! All the other stuff, which is becoming less and less, I somehow stuff it into these little liquor boxes, which by the way, are the best ones for packing.
Yeah, and make that another weird moment of the day. Even though I've been gone from Harding now for a year and a half, I still have these slight hesitations when it comes to things like.. alcohol. Having moved, oh, 9 times I think in the past 12 years or so, I know how to pack. I know how to roll the clothes and pack half heavy, half light in one box so as not to break someone's back.. and I know that the really good boxes are either book boxes, from like Barnes and Noble, or liquor boxes. When I was walking into the store tonight to ask if they had any empty boxes that I could have, Natalie rolled down the window and loudly whispered "YOU'RE GOING INTO A LIQUOR STORE!" (dork.. :)) But I always chuckle inside, thinking, if this were only two years ago, I so could have gotten kicked out.
